410 Petch . — Mo char as and the Gemts Haematomyces . 
old rotten stuff. After a few days, I observed new Mochras form : to my 
surprise it issued in various shaped masses, or worm-like pieces, as if one 
squeezed oil paint out of a tube ; this gradually curled up or coagulated 
into a mass as chance would have it. It consisted of a rather firm, slightly 
translucent, dirty whitish-yellow jelly. 
‘To the taste it was almost insipid, but with a slight roughness 
indicating astringency. It proved wholly insoluble in cold water, and 
nearly so in boiling water, though I think it went into a pulp under such 
treatment. It did not appear, either, soluble in pure spirits of wine, but 
imparted a red colour to the liquid. 
‘ This jelly, when dried by the air and heat of the sun. acquired a dark 
brown colour ; the surface dried first, and the inner part gradually shrunk 
afterwards, accounting for the blister-like irregular pieces. This then is 
Mochras (at least one kind of it).’ 
The above experience differs from that of other observers in that the 
exudation was obtained from a living, though damaged, tree. But it agrees 
with others in that wounding the tree did not induce its formation. 
Dymock, in the £ Materia Medica of Western India ’, gives the following 
information regarding Mocharas : 
‘ When first exuded it is a whitish fungous mass which gradually turns 
red, and finally dries into brittle mahogany-coloured tears. The larger tears 
are hollow in the centre, the cavity being produced during the gradual drying 
of the jelly-like mass which first exudes. Dry Mocharas when soaked in water 
swells up, and resumes very much the appearance of the fresh exudation. 
The taste is purely astringent, like tannin. 
‘ Mocharas is not a simple juice, but the product of a diseased action, 
which consists in a proliferation of the parenchyme cells of the bark. 
Upon making a section of the diseased part a number of small cavities are 
seen which contain a semi-transparent jelly-like substance, consisting of 
oblong cells with botryoidal nuclei. At the margin of the cavity the 
columns of healthy cells are seen breaking up, and the cells separating to 
join the jelly-like mass : this gradually increases in size and finds its way to 
the surface to be extruded as Mocharas. Upon its first appearance it is of 
an opaque, yellowish-white colour, firm externally, but semi-fluid internally, 
and there is no central cavity. The cause of the diseased condition of the 
bark which produces Mocharas has not been determined.’ 
Dymock further states that Mocharas only exudes from portions of the 
bark which have been injured by decay or insects. 
The majority of observers have recorded that they have not been able 
to induce the formation of this exudation by wounding a healthy tree. 
There is some possibility of error in these observations, owing to the 
peculiar character of the Bombax cortex. On a well-grown tree, the 
cortex at the base of the stem is very thick, and the inner layers readily 
