cultivating in England. By Mr. John Lindley. 99 



moderately sized spreading tree with very slender flexile 

 branches. The leaves are dark green on their upper sur- 

 face, and are covered beneath with a remarkably satiny 

 ferruginous pubescence. The flowers grow in small purplish 

 bunches, and are succeeded by a round, fleshy, smooth 

 fruit, resembling a large Apple. In the inside it is divided 

 into ten cells, each containing a black shining rhomboidal 

 seed, and surrounded by a white, or sometimes purplish, ge- 

 latinous pulp, traversed with milky veins, and of a very sweet 

 agreeable flavour. In an unripe state the taste is said to be 

 astringent and unpleasant.* When cut across, the seeds, 

 which are regularly disposed round the axis of the fruit, pre- 

 sent a stellate figure, from whence the name of Star Apple is 

 derived. There is a smaller species, which produces the fruit 

 called the Damson Plum.f The tree is very common in the 

 hot-houses about London, and is exceedingly well represented 

 in a fruit-bearing state in Sloane's Jamaica, plate 229. 



The Plums of these islands are the produce of various 

 species of Spondias ; the Yellow Plum of S. lutea, the Hog 

 or Spanish Plum of S. Mombin, and the Common Plum of S. 

 purpurea. They are all Ash-like small trees, with inconspicu- 

 ous whitish flowers growing in bunches. Their fruit is not 

 highly esteemed, although they are generally cultivated For 

 the most part their taste is sweetish and aromatic.^ From 

 the Spanish Plum an inebriating kind of wine is procured. || 

 Most of them are strangers to our gardens. 



In addition to the kinds I have mentioned already, the fruit 

 of theCoccoloba uvifera or Sea-side Grape, of theGarlickPear 



* Sloane, Vol. ii. page 170. Browne, page 171. f Browne, page 171. 



♦ Sloane, Vol. ii. page 125, 127- !| Browne, page 228. 



