SAP 
SAP 
G63 
smooth, panicle axillary, simple. A tree of about eight feet in 
height, with a straight stem of about two inches in diameter, 
and leafy at the top: bark rough and ash-coloured: wood 
brittle and whitish.—Grows at Cayenne. 
11. Sapindus edulis, or esculent soap-berry tree, or Chinese 
lee-chee.—Unarmed, leaves pinnate, leaflets lanceolate-ob¬ 
long, rachis simple, berries cordate, scaly. Unarmed. 
Branches round, smooth, with a dotted bark. Racemes ter¬ 
minating, decompound ; peduncles and pedicels slightly 
tomentose.—Native of China, Tunquin, and Cochin-china. 
12. Sapindus mukorossi, or Japan soap-berry tree.— 
Leaves alternate, unequally pinnate, leaflets sub-sessile, ovate, 
or lanceolate, entire. The branches, petioles and leaves of 
this tree are smooth—Native of Japan. 
13. Sapindus abruptus, or abrupt-leaved soap-berry tree. 
—Unarmed, leaves abruptly pinnate, leaflets lanceolate, quite 
entire, smooth. This is a large tree, with spreading unarmed 
branches. Flowers pale, in large sub-terminating racemes.— 
Native of China, about Canton. 
Propagation and Culture. —These plants are propagated 
by seeds,"obtained from the countries where they naturally 
grow; set in small pots filled with rich fresh earth, and 
plunged into a hot-bed of tanner’s bark. The pots must be 
frequently watered, and in five or six weeks the plants will 
appear. In a month or six weeks they will be fit to trans¬ 
plant, when they must be shaken out of the pots, and care¬ 
fully parted, so as not to injure their roots, and each planted 
into a separate small pot, filled with light rich earth, and 
then plunged into the hot-bed again, observing to shade them 
from the sun every day, until they have taken new root; 
after which time they must have free air admitted to them 
every day when the weather is warm, and will require to be 
frequently watered. A moderate degree of heat will be suf¬ 
ficient. 
The last sort is much more hardy, and may be placed in 
a green-house in the autumn, where it will live through the 
winter, and in summer should be exposed to the open air in 
a sheltered situation, where it will thrive very well. 
SAPINUS, in Botany, a name given by some of the 
modern botanical writers to the fir-tree. This does not 
seem, however, to have been the tree so called by the an¬ 
cients. Some of those writers have plainly described the 
pine-tree under this name, and Pliny makes it the denomi¬ 
nation of the pitch-tree, such as was cultivated in his time. 
SAPISTON, a parish of England, in Suffolk; 9 miles 
north-east of Bury St. Edmund’s. 
SAPIUM [a name adopted by Browne, as it seems, from 
Pliny, who uses it for a sort of fir, abundant in resin], in 
Botany, a genus of the class monoecia, order monadelphia, 
natural order tricoccse; euphorbiae (Juss.) —Generic Cha¬ 
racter. Male, Calyx: perianth of one leaf, bell-shaped, 
coloured, divided half way down into two roundish, con¬ 
cave, obtuse, converging segments. Corolla none. Stamina ; 
filaments two, thread-shaped, combined at the base, spread¬ 
ing upwards, twice as long as the calyx, on whose segments 
they lie; anthers oblong, of two lobes, divaricated at the 
Base.—Female, in the lower part of the same spike, Calyx : 
perianth inferior, of one leaf, small, bell-shaped, coloured, 
closely embracing the germen, three-toothed at the margin. 
Corolla none. Pistil: germen ovate, longer than the calyx; 
style erect, very short; stigma three-cleft, acute, reflexed, 
very large. Pericarp; capsule roundish, with three slight 
furrows, obtuse, three-lobed, of three cells and three valves, 
which separate at the top into two parts. Seeds solitary, 
orbicular, compressed, rugged, unequally toothed at the 
margin.— Essential Character. Male, Calyx divided. Co¬ 
rolla none. Stamens two, combined.—Female, Calyx three¬ 
toothed. Corolla none. Style very short. Stigma three- 
cleft. Capsule three-grained. 
1. Sapium aucuparium, or two-glanded sapiura.—Leaves 
oblong, pointed, minutely serrated. Footstalks crowned 
with two glands.—Native of the West Indies: sometimes 
seen in our stoves. An elegant tree, thirty feet high, from' 
whose trunk, when wounded, a kind of bird-lime exudes. 
Tire leaves are smooth and shining, about four inches long, 
with two conspicuous glandular tubercles on the top of 
their footstalks. Spikes terminal, many-flowered, long and 
slender, of a yellowish-green. Calyx dark purple. An¬ 
thers red. 
2. Sapium Indicum, or East Indian sapium.—Gathered by 
Dr. Roxburgh, in the East Indies. Leaves two inches, or 
rather more, in length, with two impressions at their base. 
Footstalks half an inch long. Capsule the size of a medlar. 
3. Sapium ilicifolium, or holly-leaved sapium.—Leaves 
ovate, with three spinous teeth at each side.—Native of 
South America. The spikes, by Plunder's figure, appear to 
be compound, at least in the male portion. Fruit like the 
first species. 
SAPLESS, adj. [paspleap, Saxon; saploos, Dutch.] 
Wanting sap; wanting vital juice. 
Pithless arms, like to a whither’d vine. 
That droops his sapless branches to the ground. 
Shdkspeare. 
Dry; old; husky. 
If by this bribe, well plac’d, he would ensnare 
Some sapless usurer that wants an heir. Dry den. 
SA'PLING, s. A young tree; a young plant. 
Look how I am bewitch’d ■ behold, mine arm 
Is, like a blasted sapling, whither’d up. Shakspeare. 
SAPMEER, a large village in the north-east of the Ne¬ 
therlands. Population 2100; 10 miles south-east of Gro¬ 
ningen. 
SAPOCAI, a river of Brazil, in the province of San 
Vicente, which runs west, and enters the Parana. 
SAPONACEA Terra, in Natural History, a term 
used by some to express a kind of native alkali salt, of the 
nature of the nitre, or natron, of the ancients, which is 
found on the surface of the earth, mixed with dirt, &c., in 
the neighbourhood of Smyrna, and thence called by some 
Smyrna earth. 
It is found principally in two places near Duraclea, a 
large open village, about six leagues to the eastward of 
Smyrna; and in a very flat plain, about a league westward 
from the river Hermus. It is, at first gathering, a fine 
whitish salt, which of itself boils up, as it were, out of the 
ground. It is always gathered before sun-rise, and only in 
mornings in which there falls no dew; so that a stock suffi¬ 
cient for the whole year must be laid in during the summer 
months. It comes up in some places an inch or two above 
the surface of the ground; but when the sun rises upon it, 
it dries and falls down again. The earth producing it lies 
low in both places, and in winter is washy. It is thinly 
covered with grass. 
The people of the place make soap with this earth in the 
following manner:—they mix three-fourths of this earth with 
one-fourth of lime, and then pour boiling water upon this 
mixture; they stir this with a stick, and there arises to the 
top a thick brownish substance, which they scum off; they 
save this in vessels by itself. They use both this and' the 
clear liquor in making soap, but this is much stronger than 
the liquor. They put fifty quintals of oil into a larger 
copper boding vessel, and kindling a large fire under it, they 
let the oil boil a little, and then throw in by little and little 
first the scum of the ley, and afterwards the liquor itself; 
though sometimes they use only the one, or only the other. 
They continue adding more and more of these, till the oil 
acquires the consistence of soap, which is often several days. 
The fire must be all this time kept up very strong. The 
scum of the ley, and the stronger part of the ley itself, mix 
with the oil in the boiling, and the weaker part unmixing 
itself, sinks to the bottom, and is let out by a cock pre¬ 
pared for that purpose. This is not thrown away, but is 
let run upon fresh lime and earth, to make a ley for future 
use; and when the soap is perfectly made, it is ladled out, 
and put upon a brick or lime floor to harden. 
The common proportion in the making of the soap is two 
loads of earth, five quintals each, to fifty quintals of oil, and 
the produce is between seventy and eighty quintals of soap. 
The 
