181 
ACACIA CATECHU. 
Catechu, or Medicinal Acacia* 
Class PoLYGAMiA.— Ori^er Moncecia. 
Nat. Ord. Lomentace^, Linn. LEGUMiNoSiE, Juss. 
Gen. Char. Hermaph. Calyx five-toothed. Corolla five- 
cleft, or formed of five petals. Stamens Pistil 1, 
Legume bivalve. 
Male. Ca/j/a: five- toothed. Coro/Za five-cleft, 
or formed of five petals. Stamens 4—100. 
Spec. Char. Spines stipulary, hooked, in pairs. Leaves 
hairy, bipinnate ; first division of ten or twelve pairs • 
second of many pairs ; with a gland at each extremity of the 
foot-stalk. Spikes cylindrical, axillary, two or three together. 
This, like the preceding species of Acacia.f formerly belonged to 
the genus Mimosa of Linnaeus, and was with it removed to the new 
genus Acacia. The Indian drug which is the produce of this tree 
has been long known by the name of Terra Japonica, a name which 
was originally given to it, from a supposition that it was a mineral 
production of the Island of Japan; and though it was soon disco- 
vered by chemical analysis, to be of vegetable origin, neither the 
plant from which it was obtained, nor the process of preparing it 
were sufficiently ascertained, for nearly a century after it had been in 
general use in Europe. Writers on the Materia Medica very Gene- 
rally, from the time of Clusius, considered the Catechu to be ex- 
tracted from the seeds of a nut, the produce of a species of palm 
(Areca or beetle nut) ; and in both the editions of the Materia Medica 
of Linnaeus, he refers the drug to the " Areca Catechu, frondibus 
pinnatis, fol.ol.s replicatis oppositis pr^morsis." We are told, how- 
ever, by Mr. Kerr, Assistant Surgeon to the Civil Hospital in Bengal 
who was the first to describe the tree, that in the province of Bahar; 
* Fig. n. Male flower. 6. The legume. 
