382 THE UMBER TREES AND USEFUL PLANTS 
to several pounds' weight, are got at by digging from two to six feet. To 
remove their original acridity, they are always steeped for a night in 
ashes and water ere being cooked. 
As a curious instance of the power of vegetation, I may mention the 
following. A piece of tuber about half a pound in weight having been 
put aside among some specimens, soon after the rains commenced I 
iound that it had shot out a young stem a foot long through the folds 
of the paper in which it was wrapped. It was then tied up in a 
woollen stocking, without a particle of soil, hung up in a verandah, and 
liberally watered. In six weeks, until it was unfortunately broken 
off, it sent out, to a length of nearly twenty feet, its climbing stem 
with abundance of leaves, but without manifesting any disposition to 
flower. 
This species of yam (allied to the common cultivated rdtalti of these 
parts, and to the West Indian yam) is found in many countries within 
and near the tropics, and it, as well as several of its wild congeners, is 
used as food in various other parts of India. Its roots were largely 
eaten by the multitudes of starving poor who were employed on the 
Mohna pass road in 1861. 
49. Diospyros — — , tendii, abnus. This tree, which grows to no great 
height, and has a dark-coloured bark cut into quadrangular tesselations, 
by longitudinal furrows and shallow transverse cracks, is not now to be 
found in large quantity in any part of the forest, and towards the 
western end appears to be quite extinct. 
The JDiospyri furnish most of the ebonies of commerce, some of 
which are in Europe largely used in cabinet work, but mainly only in 
veneering from their being liable to warp and crack. 1 maund — /3 ; 
10 seers 1/ — . The heart wood of this species, which is of a fine black 
colour, and not liable to the attacks of insects, supplies the local manufac- 
ture of ebony work-boxes, &c, at Nugeena; of which the carving, 
though rather plain, and perhaps somewhat unvaried, is very neatly 
executed. Ere a tree is cut down an incision is made into it, to find 
out if there be much rnal, or heart wood, as the outer wood is entirely 
useless, and this practice, though necessary, doubtless injures many 
trees. 
The fruit, which is globular and about the size of a pigeon's egg, has 
a sweetish, astringent, and not unpleasant taste, and is eaten by the 
natives. 
50. D. Montana, Rox : (urdinia ?) This small tree, which is still 
more rare than the last, does not appear to afford any ebony, nor does it 
at all resemble the former in appearance, but it is not unlike the Dios- 
pyros {D. Lotus?) which produces the amloh fruit of Aifghanistan. 
51. Ehretia aspera, Eox : chamror kodak. A tree with whitish, very 
smooth bark, not uncommon throughout the forest. It grows to no great 
size, nor is its timber much valued. Cart load /6 j 10 inaunds 1/—. 
