1068 
NATURAL ARRANGEMENT. 
Order LXI. SALICARIiE 
Most of these are very showy plants, in particular the genera Lj thrum and Lagerstrce'mia, which are the 
representatives of the order. They are chiefly natives of temperate climates, on mountains and among bushes. 
Glaux and P^plis are common shore plants in England. Heimia is remarkable for its yellow flowers. Little 
is known of the properties of Salicarice ; they are mostly astringent ; the common Salicaria is used in inveterate 
diarrhoeas ; a species of Lythrum is used in Mexico as a vulnerary and astringent, and Lawsonia, which is 
used by the Turkish women to stain their nails, is also supposed to possess similar properties. There is a plant 
of this order called Hanchinol in Mexico, which is said to possess much more remarkable powers than any of 
the preceding; its expressed juice, taken in doses of four ounces, excites violent perspiration and secretion of 
urine, and is said to cure venereal disorders in an incredibly short space of time. 
877 Grislea W. 1094. Lythrum TV. 302 Ammannia W. 898 Laws6nia W. 
1097 Cuphea Jacq. 1095 Nesa;'a Kuntli. 568 Glaux W. 1031 Acisanthera J. 
1195 Lagerstroe'mia W. 1096 Heimia Lk. 836 Peplis W. 
Order LXII." MELASTOMACE^. 
All these are remarkable as handsome tropical shrubs or trees, with large purple or white flowers, and leaves 
with several costas, or nerves as they are incorrectly termed. The genera admitted in the body of the work 
are those received by the greater part of previous v/riters ; they have been much increased, and apparently 
with great propriety, by Mr. D. Don. The species are generally ill treated in collections, v^here they are not 
unfrequently to be found under the form of sickly stunted plants, instead of noble broad-leaved spreading 
shrubs, with masses of brilliant flowers. To be grown well they require much heat, much moisture during the 
summer, and much pit-room and head-room. The fruit of true Melastomas is a fleshy insipid juicy berry, 
which is for the most part eatable, and is often so deep a black as to dye the teeth and mouths of those who 
eat it. They are nearly related to Priyrtacea?, from which they differ in the want of essential oil, and of the 
dot-like reservoirs of the leaves which contain it. The juice of the leaves of M. succ6sa and alata is used as a 
lotion for recent wounds by the inhabitants of Guiana. 
899 Osbeckia W. 1029 Melastoma W. 1075 Blakea W. 
900 Rhexia W. 1030 Petaloma W. 
Order LXIII. MYRTACE^E. 
Dotted leaves, with marginal ribs, and an inferior ovarium and single style, are the great features of Myr- 
tacese. They are all fine evergreen shrubs or trees, generally bearing white flowers, and in the first section 
producing fleshy fruit. It is there that the Allspice, the Clove, the Rose-apple, and the Guava find their station, 
by the side of the common myrtle and pomegranate of Europe. The section with capsular fruit comprehends, 
with the exception of the gigantic Eucalyptuses, almost wholly, handsome hard-wooded New Holland or South 
Sea shrubs, with white or crimson flowers and stamens ; yellow flowers are very uncommon. The volatile oil 
contained in the little reservoirs of the bark, the leaves, and the floral envelopes, gives these plants the 
fragrance which has caused them to be celebrated by poets of all ages. It is very aromatic, a little acrid, and 
slightly tonic and stimulant, whether it is under the form of Cajeputi oil, the produce of Melaleuca leucaden- 
dron, or of oil of cloves or of myrtle. In the clove this oil is so abundant as to constitute nearly a fifth of tlie 
whole weight of the calyxes that produce it. There is also a considerable proportion of astringent principle in 
these plants ; in the bark of the pomegranate it is very obvious ; and in Myrtus r^gni and luma of Chile, Eu- 
genia malaccensis, it is so abundant as to render a decoction of those plants of great use in cases of dysentery. 
Eucalyptus resinitera produces an astringent resinous substance resembling gum Kino. The leaves of the 
Chilian myrtles, Leptospermum scoparium, and some other species, have been used as substitutes for tea. 
Tribe 1. Baccat/e. 
1193 Alangium J. 1120 Caryophyllus P. S. 1123 Pimenta Lindl. 1499 C^reya Roxb. 
11 18 Psi'dium ^F. 1121 Myrtus Jf^. 1124 Ol^nthia Lmd/. 1082 Decumaria W-. 
1119 Eugenia W. 1122 Calyptranthes W. Wil Punica W. 
891 Bffi'ckia Sm. 
1115 Leptospermum W. 
1116 Fabr'icia W. 
1125 Stravadium Juss. 
Tribe 2. Capsulares. 
1117 Metrosideros W. 
1126 Eucalyptus W. 
1610 Melaleuca U. K. 
Tribe 3. Lecythide^. 
1497 Barringt6nia W. 
1611 Trlstania Br. 
1612 Calothamnus Lab. 
1613 Beauf6rtia Br. 
1498 Gustavia W. 
Order LXIV. COMBRETACE^. 
Combretum and Ouisqualis are among the most splendid of the climbing plants of the tropics, adorning the 
trees from which tliey depend with garlands of white and crimson, and yellow. The bark of Bficida Bviceras 
is used with success in Guiana for tanning leather. The juice of Terminalia vernix is employed by the Chinese 
as a varnish ; it is, however, caustic, and its exhalation dangerous ; benzoin is the produce of Terminalia 
Benzoin. The kernel of several species is eaten as a nut, and the expressed oil has the remarkable quality 
of not becoming rancid. 
544 Conocarpus W. 1027 Get6nia Roxb. 2140 Terminalia W. 
916 Combretum W. 1028 Quisqualis W. 
Order LXV. PASSIFLORE^. 
The beauty of Passifloras is well known ; they are remarkable for the singular arrangement of the stamens 
and pistillum, upon a column surrounded bv several lines of circumvallation, formed by as many rows of 
barren thread-like colored stamens, which are popularly called the rays. The fruit of several species of passion- 
flower is filled with a pleasant acidulated pulp, on which account they are eaten as dessert fruit. It is not 
known that they possess any medical properties. The station of the order is not settled j it is undoubtedly 
very near CucurbiiaccEe. 
1459 Passiflora W. 2015 Modecca Lam. 
Order LXVI. CUCURBIT ACE^. 
Here is the station of the gourd, the melon, and the cucumber, succulent climbing vegetables, the fruit of 
which administers to us many of cur comforts and necessities. The importance of the gourd in hot countries 
is of the highest degree, where, from the nature of the climate, few of those culinary vegetables that are so 
abundant in the north can be made to succeed. Among these tribes of climbing annuals, the papaw tree is a 
remarkable deviation from the ordinary character of the vegetation. Its fruit, however, and floweis are m 
all respects those of Cucurbitaccas. The fruit is mostly sweet, watery, refreshing, and pleasant to the palate ; 
but the coloquintida gourd, the spirting cucumber, and the Trichosanthes amara, are all possessed oi 
violent bitter, drastic, purgative qualities, which are, indeed, to be found, in a slight degree, even m the 
mildest of the eatable gourds. M. Decandolle observes, that as the violent action of the Colocinth resm is 
much softened bv the mixture with it of gum, it is probable that the difJerence in the fruits of the order de- 
pends upon the different proportions between these two substances. The seeds of the gourd, like those ol the 
