Medico-Botanical Notices. 
117 
February, and produces a delicious edible fruit, like straw- 
berries and cream. The fruit is ripe in April, and contains 
from two to four seeds. The milk is a rich, white, bland 
fluid, without odour, and of the taste and flavour of common 
milk. It mixes readily with tea and coffee, without curdling 
or undergoing any change, and in every respect seems like 
cow's milk. Boiling water does not alter it. It keeps un- 
altered six or seven days at a temperature of 85°. In four- 
teen days, Mr. Webster goes on to say, it evolved a sour 
odour, but had not coagulated ; a gummy pellicle adhered to 
the cork, Some vinegar was added to the recent fluid with- 
out producing any immediate change ; in forty-eight hours 
it acquired an unpleasant odour. Bicarbonate of soda thick- 
ened it a little, and in forty-eight hours produced a separa- 
tion into a watery and creamy mass, the latter on the sur- 
face. A spirituous solution of bichloride of mercury thick- 
ened it a little, and seemed to produce a pellicle of gummy 
matter. Sulphate of iron thickened it and discoloured it 
slightly. Diluted sulphuric acid produced no immediate ef- 
fect. Some, which Mr. Webster kept for a length of time, 
separated into a sourish milky water and a white solid mass, 
which, when taken out of the bottle and dried in the air, was 
a white inflammable substance, not softening at the tempera- 
ture of the body; melting at 143°; tasteless, insoluble in 
water and spirits, and resembling white wax more than any 
other substance to which it could be compared. It burnt 
with a bright and agreeable flame, without smell, and was 
neither greasy nor resinous. This tree affords a most 
valuable timber for ship building, and is used for that pur- 
pose at Para. 
Mirabilis Jalapa. This plant, so well known in our gar- 
dens under the name of "Four o'clock," was supposed for 
a long time to furnish the jalap of the shops, which article 
it approaches in medical properties. Chamberlain says, 
that in doses of forty grains, it operates freely on the bowels, 
but according to Devaux, this effect is uncertain, even in 
doses of two drachms, (Journ. de Bot vi. 202.) Coste and 
