414 
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
has white flowers ; and the fruit is like small sorva, with a phim-likc 
styptic flavour. 
This description corresponds with that of the species of Zizyphus 
with one of which I think it may he identified — except that in Lin- 
schoten's account it is said they have no stone but some small kernels 
which resemble pistachios — the species of Zizyphus^ however, have a 
stone which includes the kernel.^ 
[References. — Clusius (Acosta), p. 76; Linschoten, h-jP- 32; Bontius 
and Fiso, lib. vi., p. Ill, fig. ; AinsUe, ii., p. 69 ; Khory, p. 220.] 
COLLOQUY XXIX. 
Do Lacee. 
[Lac, i. e. shellac, an exudation produced on various trees by the 
Coccus lacca.'] 
Called locsumutri by the Arabs, Persians, and Turks, because it was 
shipped to Hormuz by the Chinese from Sumatra, though produced in 
Pegu ; tree in Pegu and Martaban, and lac in Bengal, Balaghat, and 
Malabar. 
It also came from ' Jamay ' (that is, Laos in Siam) ; but Garcia 
says it was not produced in Sumatra. Garcia says he was informed 
that it was produced on trees resembling the plum by large ants 
which form it on the small branches, working as the bee works 
when making honey. He says he saw in Goa a branch of the maceira or 
her which was covered with it. [This I take to have been the Zizyphus 
or Jangomas of the previous colloquy. The Zizyphus jujuba is one of 
the trees on which lac is obtained.] Garcia' s account of the lac of Pegu, 
as being formed by the ants and being sometimes impure, was owing 
to the presence of the woody matter of the twigs round which it is 
concreted; it has doubtless given rise to the somewhat exaggerated 
accounts to be found in subsequent writers.^ 
Garcia dispels certain erroneous ideas supposed to be held by 
Avicena, Dioscorides, Serapion, and others of the early writers as to 
the origin and affinities of lac. What they described were various 
gums, such as caucamo and henzoin {see Coll. ix.). 
1 Curiously enough in the following chapter mention is made of the maceira or 
ber of the Deccanis, to which Garcia says he has made mention above {see 
Coll. x.). 
2 See Tavemier, English trans, by V. Ball, vol. ii., pp. 20 and 282. 
