ROSWELLIA SERRATA. 
197 
The BOSWELLIA Serrata is a native of the mountainous parts 
of India. We are told by Mr. Colebrooke that on the route by which 
he travelled to Barar in the year 1798 he frequently met with this 
tree in the forests between the Sone and Nagpiir. 
This is a large tree ; the foliage is crowded at the extremities of 
the branches ; the leaves are impari-pinnate, consisting of ten pairs 
of sessile leaflets, 6ach about an inch, or an inch and a half in length, 
obliquely ovate, oblong, obtuse, serrated, villous, and supported upon 
short downy petioles; the flowers, which are numerous, are produced 
in axilfary racemes, shorter than the leaves, and accompanied by 
minute bracteas ; the calyx is monophyllous, five-toothed,* and 
downy ; the corolla is composed of five oblong spreading petals, of 
a pale pinkish colour, externally downy ; the nectary is a fleshy, 
crenulate, coloured cup, adhering to the calyx ; the ten stamens are 
alternately shorter, and support oblong anthers ; the pistillum con- 
sists of an ovate germen, cylindrical style, and trilobate stigma ; the 
capsule is smooth, three-sided, trilocular, three-celled, and three- 
valved, each cell containing one perfect seed only, which is broad, 
cordate, and winged. 
The gum which exudes from this tree was noticed by Mr. D. 
TurnbuU (surgeon to the Residency at Nagpiir) who accompanied 
Mr. Colebrooke: the former gentleman judged it to be Olibanum, 
and so did several intelligent natives; but, says Mr. Colebrook, the 
notion prevalent among botanists that Olibanum is the produce of a 
species of juniper.f left room for doubt. I now learn from Mr. 
Turnbull, that since his return to his station at Mirzapur, he has 
procured considerable quantities of the gum of this tree, which he 
has sent to Europe at difterent times; first without assigning the 
name of Olibanum, and more lately under that designation. It \Vas 
in England recognized for Olibanum, though offered for sale as adif- 
* The fractifioation is remarkably diversified on the same plant. I have found, even 
on the same raceme, flowers in which the teeth or lobes of the calyx varied from four 
to ten; the number was generally five, sometimes six, rarely seven, more rarely four, 
and very rarely 10 ; petals as many as divisions of the calyx ; stamens twice as many ; 
capsule generally three-sided, sometimes four, rarely five-sided, with as many cells and 
as many valves ; seeds generally solitary : the dissection of the germen does indeed 
exhibit a few in each cell, but only one is usually raatured.-Dr.. Roxburgh's Descrip- 
tion, Asiatic Researches, vol. ix. p. 3S0. 
t In our account of the Juniperus Lycia we noticed the prevailing opinions on this 
snbject. — Ed. 
VOL. II. ^ ^ 
