P I s 
P I s 
524 
capfule, armed with fmall crooked fpines, each containing 
one oblong oval fmooth feed. 
Jacquin defcribes it as an inelegant tree, with round 
reclining branches, wanting fupport. Spines awl-lhaped, 
acuminate, axillary, oppofite, perpendicular to the 
branch, ftrong, recurved at the points. Leaves oval, 
acute, quite entire, fmooth, petioled, oppofite. Racemes 
corymbed, branched, axillary and terminating, not 
reaching beyond the leaves, but when in fruit very much 
elongated. Flowers fmall, numerous, yellowifli green, 
fupported by three awl-lhaped brakes if the flower ter¬ 
minates the branchlet of the raceme, but with two only 
if it is placed at the fide of it, the raceme itfelf then 
ferving for the third. 
Jacquin obferved many plants of this fpecies about 
Kinglton in Jamaica, where they areabundant, and always 
traced the hermaphrodite and female flowers to different 
individuals. Browne affirms that the flowers are very 
various; being fometimes hermaphrodite on every 
branch, fometimes male in one branch and female in 
another, and fometimes male, female, and hermaphrodite, 
on the different parts of the fame plant; but moll com¬ 
monly they are all of one kind. It is a ftrong withy 
climber, the main trunk being fometimes no lefs than 
five or fix inches in diameter; but this is generally in 
the woods, where it thrives beft, and is commonly fup¬ 
ported by the help of fome of the neighbouring trees. It 
is frequently cut for hoops, when there is a fcarcity of 
other wood. 
Gartner defcribes the fruit as a fuperior capfule, 
oblong, blunt, five-cornered, coriaceous, muricate with 
little barbed glutinous prickles, in a double row, at the 
angles ; it is of a very dark brown colour, one-celled and 
valvelefs, though Linnaeus defcribed it otherwife, being 
milled by Plunder’s figure. In Jamaica it is called 
cock’s-fpur, or fingrigo. This is very common in the 
favannas and other low places in the illand of Jamaica, 
as all'o in feveral other illands in the Weft Indies, where 
it is very troublefome to whoever pafi'es through the 
places of its growth, faftening itfelf by the ftrong 
crooked thorns to the clothes; and the feeds, being glu¬ 
tinous and burry, alfo fallen themfelves to whatever 
touches them ; fo that the wings of the ground-doves 
and other birds are often fo loaded with the feeds as to 
prevent their flying, by which means they become an 
eafy prey. 
2. Pifonia fubcordata, heart-fliaped fingrigo, or lob¬ 
lolly-tree : unarmed, leaves cordate-roundifti, fruits dry, 
fubclavate, five-cornered ; angles muricate at the tip. Na¬ 
tive of Antigua. 
3. Pifonia nigricans, or black-berried fingrigo: un¬ 
armed; leaves lanceolate-ovate; flowers cymed, eredl; 
fruits berried. Swartz refers the P. inermis of Jacquin 
to this fpecies. Jacquin defcribes it as a fmall tree with¬ 
out thorns, upright, twelve and fometimes twenty feet 
in height, with a trunk five inches in diameter. When 
it grows in thick coppices it acquires an inelegant habit, 
not much unlike the firft fpecies. Flowers fmall, green- 
ilh-yellow, with a flight odour. Berry black, foft, con¬ 
taining a whitilh pulp, which is often wanting, being pro¬ 
bably eaten by infeCts, for it is always found in the 
unripe fruit. P. inermis of Jacquin, is common in the 
woods and coppices about Carthagena in New Spain. 
Swartz found his P. nigricans in Jamaica. 
4. Pifonia coccinea, or lcarlet-berried fingrigo: un¬ 
armed ; leaves lanceolate-ovate, peduncles terminating 
loofe, flowers nodding, fruits berried. Native of Hifpaniola. 
5. Pifonia inermis, or fmall-thorned pifonia: item 
unarmed. This fpecies refts on the authority of 
Ammanes. Swartz refers the P. inermis of Jacquin to 
his P. nigricans, No. 3. According to Linnaeus it is a 
native of the Eaft Indies. Forlter afcribes it to the 
Society iflands. 
6. Pifonia grandis, or fuperb pifonia : Item arboreous ; 
leaves oblong, pointed, fmooth; cymes compound; 
flowers polygamous; ftamens from feven to nine ; calyx 
of the fruit prickly. Found by Mr. Brown in the 
tropical part of New Holland, and brought in 1805 to 
Kew, where it is kept in the green-houfe, but has not yet 
bloffomed. 
7. Pifonia villofa, or broad-leaved pifonia -. leaves 
ovate, obtufe, fomewhat downy; panicles denfe, re¬ 
peatedly branched ; downy ; calyx very flightly divi¬ 
ded. Native of the ifiand of Mauritius. The bark of 
the branch is fmooth, without thorns. Leaves two or 
three inches long, and half as broad, ftalked, ovate, 
obtufe, wavy, thinly covered with fine ihort pubefcence, 
which perhaps difappears at a more advanced period. 
Flowers very numerous, in denfe round-ftalked downy 
panicles, whofe copious fubdivifions are alternate; 
antherae large, reddifli. 
Propagation and Culture. In Europe this plant is pre- 
ferved in the gardens of fotne curious perfons for variety ; 
it is propagated by feeds, which fliould be fown in pots 
filled with light rich earth, and plunged into a hot-bed of 
tanner’s bark; and, when the plants come up, they 
fliould be tranfplanted into feparate pots, and plunged 
into the hot-bed again, where they may remain till 
Michaelmas, when they fliould be removed into theftove, 
and plunged into the bark-bed, and treated in the fame 
manner as has been directed for feveral tender plants of 
the fame country; obfervingin hot weather to give them 
plenty of water, but in winter they fliould have it more 
fparingly. They are too tender to thrive in the open air 
of this country at any feafon of the year, wherefore they 
fliould be conftantly kept in the ftove. They retain 
their leaves moft part of the year in England. 
PISO'NOS, in ancient geography, a town of Afia, in 
Lefler Armenia, on the route from Sebafte to Cocufon, 
between Ad Praetorium and Melitene, according to the 
Itinerary of Antonine. 
PIS'RAH, a town of Hindooftan, in Bahar: fifty-eight 
miles fouth-fouth-weft of Patna. 
To PISS, v, 71. To make water.—One afs piffes, the reft 
pifs for company. L'Ejlrange, 
Once poffefs’d of what with care you fave, 
The wanton boys would pifs upon your grave. Dryden. 
PISS, f. Urine; animal water. 
PIS'SA, a river of Pruflia, which runs into the Pregel 
near Infter. 
PIS'SA, a town of Pruffian Lithuania : four miles fouth 
of Stalluponen. 
PISS'ABED, f. A yellow flower growing in the grafs. 
Dandelion. See Leontodon taraxacum. 
PISSANIZE'NA, a town of Pruflia, in Natangen : 
ten miles fouth of Marggrabowa, 
PISSASPHAL'TUM, f. [from the Gr. sna-c-a, pitch, 
and uaCpaXroq. bitumen.] A native folid bitumen, found 
in the mountains of Apollonia : of ail intermediate nature 
between pitch and afphaltum. 
Piffafphaltum is as tough and vifcous as bird-lime, and 
of the fame confidence when old. It very much refem- 
bles the common black pitch, when foftened a little by 
heat: and has been generally thought to have fomething 
of the finell of that fubftance; but this feems to have 
arifen from its being too frequently adulterated by 
mixing pitch with it, and the true genuine fubftance has 
no other fmell than the rank one of all the bitumens, 
which fomewhat refembles that of oil of amber. It is 
produced in feveral parts of the world, and there are large 
quantities of it in Germany, in Perfia, and in France. 
It yields a limpid oil by diltillation, which very much 
refembles the native petroleum, and is too often fold with 
us under this name, being annually imported in large 
quantities, from thofe parts of Germany where iris ma¬ 
nufactured, and having itfelf no particular name in the 
ihops of our druggifts. It is probably the Bitumen rati- 
mia; fee Mineralogy, vol. xv. p. 475. and Mummy, 
vol. xvi. 
PISS'ER, 
