MANCHINEEL. 
57 
sight, and my eyes and face much swelled, and felt a 
violent pricking pain the first 24 hours, which from that 
time abated gradually with the swelling, and went off 
without any application or remedy, none in that unin- 
habited island being to be had. It is no wonder that 
the sap of this tree should be so virulent, when rain or 
dew, falling from its leaves on the naked body, causes 
blisters on the skin; and even the effluvia of it are so 
noxious as to affect the senses of those which stand any 
time under its shade.” 
Oily substances are considered the best remedy for 
this poison. Some also recommend a large glass of 
sea-water to be drank instantly as a preventive. 
The branches of the Manchineel are covered with a 
greyish smooth bark. The leaves, which fall annually, 
are alternate, petiolate, numerous, oval, pointed, almost 
cordate at the base, slightly and distantly serrulate, dark 
green, rather thick, shining, veined, and transversely 
nerved, 3 to 4 inches long, by about 2 inches wide. 
Stipules oval and caducous. The flowers are small and 
of a yellow colour, monoecious, and grow upon straight 
terminal spikes, like catkins. The male flowers are 
minute, collected together in clusters of about 30 toge- 
ther, each cluster subtended by a concave, caducous 
scale. The calycine scales are accompanied at their 
base by 2 large lateral orbicular depressed glands. The 
fertile flowers are sessile and solitary. The drupe in 
colour and odour is so like a small apple that it might 
easily be mistaken for it; it is shining, and of a yellow- 
ish-green colour, with a white and milky pulp. It con- 
tains a thick, bony nut, full of angular crests which 
project almost through the skin; it has ordinarily 6 or 
7, sometimes as many as 14? 1-seeded cells, which have 
no spontaneous dehiscence or valves. The male flowers 
have a very small one-leaved, roundish, bifid calyx, with 
VOL. II. 8 
