DRYOBALANOPS CAMPHORA.-CAMPHOR TREE OF SUMATRA. 
Class XIII. POLYANDRIA.— Order I. MQNOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, DIPTEROCARPEAL — THE CAMPHOR TREE TRIBE. 
(«) Capsule. (6) Section. (<■) Section cf tlie seed. 
There are two species of trees from which the camphor of commerce is obtained. That with which Bo- 
tanists have been longest acquainted is the Laurus Camphora of Linneus, a large forest tree, that grows wild 
in Japan. From the wood, root, and leaves of this tree, the camphor is extracted by distillation. It has 
been supposed, perhaps erroneously, that the greater part of this valuable drug imported from India, is ex- 
clusively the product of a tree belonging to a different genus, the Dryobalanops camphora. Kosmpfer, 
indeed, had long ago remarked, that the camphor which is found in a concrete state, occupying cavities and 
fissures in the trunk of a tree in the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, is not the Laurus camphora; but it is 
only within these thirty years that the discovery of the species which yields it, was made by Mr. H. T. 
Colebroke, who was enabled to determine the genus from the examination of some seeds sent by Mr. Prince, 
a resident at Tapanooly, to Calcutta. In Sumatra, the camphor trees are confined to the country of the 
Battas, which extends about a degree and a half immediately to the north of the equator ; and they are 
found in Borneo in nearly the same parallel of latitude. This valuable tree is not known to exist in any 
other part of the world, and on this account, as well as the difficulty of obtaining its produce, the camphor 
it yields bears an exorbitant price. It appears to be little known in Europe; and is stated by Mr. Jack to 
be all carried to China, where it sells for twelve times as much as that of Japan. 
The Dryobalanops camphora is found growing in great abundance in the forests on the north-western 
coast of Sumatra, especially in the vicinity of Tapanooly. It is a lofty tree, frequently attaining the height 
of ninety feet, with a trunk that measures six or seven feet in diameter. It is said to flower only once in 
three or four years. The trunk is arboreous, and covered with a brown bark. The leaves are opposite 
below, and alternate above, elliptical, obtusely acuminate, parallel, veined, entire, smooth, 3-7 inches long, 
one inch and a half broad, and supported on short petioles, with subulate, caducous, stipules, in pairs. The 
flowers, according to Mr. Jack, are terminal and axillary, forming a kind of panicle at the extremity of the 
branches. The calyx is monophyllous, with five linear-lanceolate spreading teeth. The corolla is 5-petalled, 
longer than the calyx ; the petals ovate-lanceolate, and in some degree adnate, or connected together at the 
base. The stamens are numerous, and have their filaments united into a ring, in which particular it differs 
from the genera most nearly related to it. The anthers are nearly sessile on the tube of the filaments, con- 
nive into a conical head round the style, and terminate in membranous points. The germen is superior, 
ovate, with a slender filiform style, longer than the stamens, and crowned by a capitate stigma. The cap- 
sule is ovate, woody, fibrous, longitudinally furrowed, embraced at the base by the calycine hemispherical 
cup, and surrounded by its enlarged leaflets, which are converted into remote, foliaceous, spatulate, rigid, 
reflex wings ; 1 -celled, and 3-valved. The seed is solitary, thin, membranaceous, thickened along one side, 
and contained between the interior fold of the cotyledons. 
The camphor is found, as already observed, in a solid state, occupying portions of about a foot, or a 
foot and a half, in the heart of the tree. The natives, in searching for the camphor, make a deep incision 
in the trunk, about fourteen or eighteen feet from the ground, with a billing or Malay axe ; and when it is 
discovered, the tree is felled, and cut into junks of a fathom long, in order to allow of the extraction of the 
crystalline masses. There are a race of men, styled Toongoo Nyr-Cappoor, who pretend to have the power 
of distinguishing those trees in which the crypta are large and full, from those, the felling of which would be 
unprofitable toil. Many, however, are mutilated without avail, notwithstanding the pretensions of the 
seers, and sometimes the cavities are found with a pitch like matter, instead of camphor and fragrant oil. 
The same trees yield both the concrete substance and a liquid or oily matter, which has nearly the same 
