102 
PUNICA GRANATUM. 
his Travels in the Ottoman Empire,* that the finest pomegranates in 
Turkey are those of Ghemlek. The Greek writers, it appears, were 
well acquainted with the pomegranate : Celsus valued the fruit as a 
stomachic, and PHny speaks of the flowers called Balaustium, " me-< 
dicinis idoneus, et tingentibus vestibus, quarum color inde noraen 
accepit;" and also tells us that the fruit was sold in the neighbour- 
hood of Carthage. t The pomegranate was first cuUivated in 
England about the year 1596, and now forms an ornamental tree in 
many of our gardens ; it is cultivated chiefly for the beauty of its 
flowers, the fruit seldom arriving to perfection. 
This small tree rises to the height of about fifteen or eighteen feet, 
it is covered, with a bark of a brown colour, and divided into many 
small branches, which are armed with spines ; the leaves are oblong 
or lance-shaped, pointed at both ends, veined, of a deep green, 
wavy, entire, about three inches long, and half an inch broad, sessile 
or placed upon very short footstalks; the flowers are large, of a rich 
scarlet colour, and proceed from the end of the young branches; the 
calyx is bell-shaped, thick, fleshy, and of a deep red colour, and 
divided at the extremity into five pointed segments ; the corolla is 
composed of five large roundish wrinkled petals, of a scarlet colour, 
with narrow claws, by which they are inserted into the calyx ; the 
stamens are numerous, filaments short, bent inwards, and inserted 
into the tube of the calyx, and supporting yellow antherae ; the ger- 
men is inferior, roundish, and supports a simple style the length of 
the filaments, terminated by a globular stigma; the fruit is about the 
size of an orange, and crowned with the segments of the calyx, the 
rind is thick and tough, externally of a reddish brown, internally 
yellow, filled with a rose coloured succulent pulp, enclosed in a 
transparent cellular membrane ; the seeds are numerous, oblong and 
angular, each enveloped in a separate portion of the pulp. The 
pomegranate tree flowers from June to September. 
Qualities and Chemical Properties. The juice contained 
in the succulent pulp of the fruit is mucilaginous and slightly acid, 
hence refreshing, and calculated to quench thirst; the flowers are 
inodorous, and gently stiptic ; the outer rind of the fruit is very stip- 
tic to the taste ; with water it yields nearly half its weight of a very 
austere extract, but gives out very little of its astringent matter to 
alcohol. The infusion of the rind is of a deep red, thick, and gluti- 
* Vol. i. p. 9. 
t Pliny, lib. 13, cb. p. 197. 
