SHINING-LEAVED POISON WOOD. 
61 
smooth and shining on the upper surface, and on both 
sides rather prominently and elegantly veined and reti- 
culated; they are slightly and distantly serrulated, often 
lanceolate, and somewhat obtuse. On- other branches 
the leaves are almost oblong-elliptic, and narrowed or 
wedge-formed at the base. In the rainy season, towards 
the extremities of the twigs come out close, brown, 
cylindric, axillary aments, which at length shoot into 
loose spikes or aments covered with numerous male 
flowers, growing by 3’s together on a common pedicel, 
which divides above into the 3 flowers, each subtended 
(apparently?) by a still smaller scale, and consisting of 
a secondary short stipe, divided into 3 stamens. The 
anthers are round, small, and 2-celled. At the base of 
the catkin, or below in a separate axil], issues the 
pedicellated female flowers, subtended at the base by 
appropriate scales, and with the rudiments of a calyx 
beneath the germ. The stigmas are 3, rather thick, 
and reflected. The fruit is tricoccous, supported upon 
an elongated pedicel and rather large. The tree, like 
most of the family of the Euphorbiacese, is filled with a 
caustic milky juice. 
According to Rumphius, the juice of the ExccBcaria 
Agallocha, and even its smoke when burnt, affects the 
eyes with great pain, as has been sometimes experienced 
by sailors, in cutting the wood for fuel, who, having 
accidentally rubbed their eyes with the juice, became 
blinded for a time, and some of them finally lost their 
sight. The Agallocha wood, formerly so much esteemed, 
remarkable for its fragrant odour and inflammability, 
belongs to the genus Aquilaria, and has no relation with 
this family of plants. 
Plate LXI. 
A branch of the natural size. a. The male flower, b. The 
female do. 
