N. 0. LEGUMIN0SA5. 
483 
red streaks ; heart-wood with an irregular outline, and radiating 
ramifications, very durable. Leaves abruptly pinnate, with 
20-40, glabrescent, close, obtuse, opposite, oblong leaflets. Ra- 
cemes copious, lax at the end of branchlets, with 10-15 flowers 
together. Pedicels articulated at the base of the Calyx. Bracts 
boatshaped, enclosing buds, caducous. Calyx-tube turbinate, 
segments 4. Petals 3, under |in. long, unequal, variegated with 
red and yellow, the 2 lower reduced to scales, perfect stamens 
3, filaments united to the middle of the anthers, oblong, versatile. 
Ovary stipitate, the stalk adnateto Calyx-tube. Pod thick, filled 
when mature with dark brown acid pulp transversed by fibres. 
3-8in. long, lin. or more broad, 3-10-seeded. Seeds brown, 
shining, without albumen, the outer coat producing abund- 
ant mucilage, when steeped in water for a time. 
Most authors make two species of Tamarindus, the Indian 
kind, with long pods, and the West Indian, with short poc^s ; 
but even those who adopt this view of the subject generally 
raise a question of their specific identity. India is probably 
the aboriginal country of both, whence the species was intro- 
duced into West Indies. Even in the East the Tamarinds of the 
Archipelago are considered the best of those of India. The Arabs 
called the tree Tamr-i-hindee, or Indian Date, from which has 
been derived the generic name, Tamarindus. The inhabitants 
of the East have a notion that it is dangerous to sleep under 
the tree, and it has been remarked, as of our Beech in Europe, 
that the ground beneath is always hare, and that no plant 
seems to thrive under its branches.* 
In the East, the pulpy fruits of the Tamarind are preserved 
without sugar, being merely dried in the sun and cured in salt. 
In the West Indies, the pulp is usually packed in small 
kegs between layers of sugar, and hot syrup is poured on 
the whole. In order to enable them to keep without ferment- 
ation for a length of time, the first syrup, which is very acid, 
’Apropos of this remark it may here be observed that the Bhangi or 
sweeper of the Santa Cruz Station, B. B. and 0. I. Railway, has his sleeping 
hut under a group of 5 or 6 tamarind trees, huge and shady, where for the 
last 20 years the hut has been in use (K, R, Kirtikar), 
