June 2, 1890,] THE TRQPiGAL AGRICULTURIST. 
ALL ABOUT THE TOON TEEE. 
(From the Hills.) 
THE NICKER TEE B — THE ' WHITE TOON ' THE HEAL 
SIMON PUKE, AND THE 'RED TOON ' ONLY A VARIETY. 
I am indebted to the accomplished Director of the 
Boyal Botanical Gardens for the following informa- 
tion regarding a tree which, as much as the kina, 
perhaps, adds to the floral glories of our forests 
at this season of the year, the kina showing a 
crown of white blossom and the " wild toon," as we 
call it, from its striking resemblance to Cedrela 
toona, being adorned with primrose-coloured flowers. 
Dr. Trimen writes : — 
" The leaves you sent are those of Meliosma Arnot- 
tiana, a very beautiful and couspicuous tree of the hill 
forests ia April when covered with sheets of cream- 
coloured blossom. I fear its beauty is its principal re- 
commendation, the wood being poor and soft. It is 
occasionally used for house-work however in the hills, 
and the lowcountry carpenters have given it a name 
nika-daioulu. Like most of our hill trees it has no real 
native name, so far as I know." 
I suspected that the timber oould not be superior, 
in consequence of our carpenters passing over these 
trees. Moon notices the tree as Gnilandina, Bon- 
duc, or Nicker tree and states that Dawula signifies 
a drum and nika a knee. In the " Treasury of 
Botany" I find under Guilandina : — "<?. Bonduc has 
solitary prickles on the leaves, and the seeds are 
yellow. G. Bonducella differs by its prickles being 
in pairs, and its seeds lead-ooloured. Seeds of both 
are very hard, and beautifully polished, and are 
called Nicker nuts or Bonduc nuts, the latter being 
derived from the Arabic, Bandog, signifying a neck- 
lace, the seeds being commonly strung into neck- 
laces, bracelets, rosaries, &c. The kernels have a 
very bitter taste, and are employed by Indian 
doctors as a tonio and febrifuge. The roots also 
are said to possess similar properties : indeed, the 
Sinhalese employ every part of these plants medi- 
cinally. The oil obtained from the seeds is sup- 
posed to be useful in convulsions and palsy." 
In consequence of my sending Dr. Trimen a leaf 
of what we know as " white toon" and of which to 
our intense disappointment we have a large number 
of plants grown from seed sent to us as that of red 
toon,— the true Cedrela toona, — Dr. Trimen added : — 
" I do not think I know the difference between what 
the planters call here ' red ' and ' white toon.' I only 
know one Cedrela toona (which has red wood and is I 
should suppose ' red ' toon), the toon tree generally. 
I have hitherto supposed that the ' white ' toon of 
Ceylon (who invented this name ?) was the W. Indian 
cedrela, C. odorata, the ' sweet cedar ' of Jamaica, 
which lias been a good deal distributed from the gar- 
dens of late years in the form of young plants, from 
seed obtained in 1885. But the plant you now send 
leaves of is just ordinary C. tomia, and I should be 
glad to know why it is ' white ' toona, and what is 
the distinctive mark from the ' red' sort." 
In reply I sent Dr. Trimen young plants, branches 
and pieces of bark of each variety of toon, which 
I am confident will oonvince him that the " white 
toon" is a very distinot and, at least for high 
altitudes, a very inferior variety. It has no odour, 
except that it stinks in the nostrils of planters 
who have tried it, and it can have no affinity to 
the fragrant Jamaioa plant. The stem and foliage 
are green and succulent looking, only some of the 
young leaves having a faint touch of pink at the 
points, while the true red toon is intensely red in 
branches and foliage from the nursery onwards. 
The laiter grows rapidly up to an altitude of 6,500 
feet, while the white toon makes very slow progress 
at 5,000 feet altitude. Where it has be6n grown 
in this district until a few years old, the tops havo 
been eaten by swarms of caterpillars; a pest from 
which the red toon is exempli. The leaves of the 
red toon are serrated, but not one leaf in a hundred 
of the white toon is so marked. The branchlets 
of red toon almost invariably end with two opposite 
leaves ; those of the white with one at the point. 
On the purely botanical question of substantial 
identity or distinct variety, Dr. Trimen's scientific 
opinion will, of course, be deoisive. But we as 
cultivators know that what we call " the white toon" 
is, in elevated regions, a slow grower, is liable at a 
few years old to be frightfully infested with insects, 
while, if the trees attain maturity, we have good 
reason to suspect that the timber will be white and 
inferior.* The red toon, on the other hand, vies 
with the eucalypti in rapid growth. I have trees 
near the Lake Bund at Nuwara Eliya, which will 
be planted out only four years in September and all 
ready some of them approach forty feet in height, 
most of them fine straight stems without a branch, 
A recent visitor from Southern India waa 
speoially impressed with the singular beauty 
of those trees. White toon trees, on the 
other hand, planted out amidst gums, casuarinas 
and grevilleas, are not yet two feet high, while the 
others are frcm 5 to 10 feet. We also know that 
the red wood of cedrela toona is little if at all in- 
ferior to mahogany in value. "One of the most 
important of all timber trees for furniture wood, 
which is easily worked, light, seasons readily, takes 
polish well and is applicable for a multitude of 
purposes in joinery. Dr. Brandis gives the stem 
girth of trees 35 years old at 7 feet, when the tree 
grew on rich and moist soil ; trees with 30 feet 
circumference are known." Such is the summing- 
up of Baron von Mueller. Added to all this the 
bark is very astringent and has been found valuable 
in fevers, dysentery, &o. Lindley's "Flora Medica" 
states that the bark of cedrela toona is "a power- 
ful astringent, and though not bitter a tolerably 
good substitute for Peruvian bark in the cure of 
remitting and intermitting fevers ; particularly when 
joined with a small portion of the powdered seed of 
Ccesalpinia Bonduccella (Kutulegee of the Bengalese) 
which is a most powerful bitter. Boxb. The bark 
was used in Java by Dr. Blume, with much success 
in the worst epidemic fevers, diarrhoea, and other 
complaints. Horsfield also applies it in various cases 
of dysentery but in the last stage, when the inflam- 
matory symptoms had disappeared. Forster 
considers it especially useful in bilious fevers, and 
inveterate diarrhoea arising from atony of the mus- 
cular fibre." I notice that they have a white cedar 
in Australia, Melia australis. In a garden in Mel- 
bourne, I saw what we call in Ceylon the Indian or 
Persian lilac, and my hosts called it " white cedar, " 
The white toon, the seed of which has oome to 
Ceylon from Southern India, may possibly be a good 
tree at low attitudes, but here it is simply a great 
disappointment. 
Pending a fuller communication, Dr. Trimen now 
writes to say that the tree which the planters have 
named " white toon " is the typical Cedrela toona 
of the "Flora Indioa," the red toon being a variety 
indigenous to elevated parts of India, distinguished 
as Cedrela .serrata ! The " white toon " yields 
beautiful red wood ! It is, therefore, more than 
probable that this " white toon " as we have named 
it, though it is not at home up in these higher 
altitudes, may prove to be a very valuable acquisi- 
* This question we cannot decide ; and it is curious that 
in the dis'^ict of Salem, whence we got the while toon 
seed from the forester, Cedrela toona is said to abouud in 
the jungle. The late Dr. Shortt classed " rod Cedar" 
white Cedar, Ohiakrassia taMaris and Cedrela toona 
together, 
