Observations on the Flora, fyc. 



[Jul* 



complaints, in conjunction with spices. The seeds of both are clothed 

 with silky cotton, whence they are usually called cotton-trees, but must 

 not, on that account, be confounded with the Gossipium arborium. The 

 cotton, being unfit for spinning, is only used for stuffing cushions, for 

 which it is well fitted, by its property of not readily becoming matted 

 into hard lumps like the true cotton. The Baobab or Ethiopean 

 sour gourd tree (Adansonia digitata), is now naturalized in India. It 

 is remarkable for the immense thickness of its trunk — trees, thirty feet 

 in diameter, it is stated, being occasionally met with in Africa. I have my- 

 self measured trees in this country nearly forty feet in circumference. 

 " Adanson, during his visit to Senegal, has given a full and interesting 

 account of this tree, and, certainly, not the least striking circumstances 

 respecting it are, its enormous size, and its great age, whence ithas been 

 called arbre de mille ans, and whence, too, Humboldt has been led to 

 speak of it, as the oldest organic monument of our planet. Its trunk, 

 indeed, great as is its diameter, has a height by no means proportion- 

 able to its breadth. Adanson calculates as follows : That a tree of 

 1 year old is 1 inch or U inch diameter, 5 inches in height. 



20 . , 





15 



30 







100 , 



4 



29 



1000 



14 , 



58 





, 18 



, . , 64 



5150 . 



30 



...73 



H The leaves, dried and reduced to powder constitute lalo, a favourite 

 article with the natives, and which they mix daily with their food, for 

 the purpose of diminishing the excessive perspiration to which they 

 are subject in those climates, and even the Europeans find it serviceable 

 in cases of diarrheea, fevers, and other maladies. 



" The fruit is, perhaps, the most useful part of the tree. Its pulp 

 is slightly acid and agreeable, and frequently eaten ; while the juice is 

 expressed from it, mixed with sugar, and constitutes a drink which is 

 valued as a specific in putrid and pestilential fevers. Owing to these 

 circumstances, the fruit forms an article of commerce." (Hooker's Bot . 

 Mag. No. 2791). 



Helicteres isora, a shrub widely distributed over India, is interesting 

 on account of its curious spiral seed vessel, somewhat resembling a 

 screw, and on that account supposed by the natives to be useful in pains 

 of the bowels. The Durian tree, a native of the eastern islands, is re- 

 markable for its foetid but pleasant tasted fruit. 



