ON THE CAMPHOR TREE OF SUMATRA. 
335 
at the top, forming a somewhat convex crown. A person looking 
over the tops of the trees from an elevated place, for instance, 
from the mountains behind Loemoet, at a height of from three to 
four hundred feet, can, without difficulty, count the full-grown 
camphor-trees that are scattered in the forest; for, while the 
Anonacece, Acacias, Fagrcece, and figs, which compose the chief 
mass of trees in those forests, are eighty or even a hundred feet 
high, the camphor-tree, with its gigantic crown, is seen rising 
fifty or even a hundred feet above them, as the steeples of churches 
appear above the roofs of the houses in a town. The following 
are its dimensions, compared with those of the rassamala (Liqui- 
dambar Altinghiana ): 
Camphor-tree 
Rassamala 
Thickness of the trunk. 
Length of the 
trunk. 
Diameter of 
the crown 
Beneath. 
Above. 
7-10 feet 
5-7 
5-8 feet 
3-5 
100-130 feet 
70-90 
50-70 feet 
40-50 
Near the ground the Camphor-tree gives out radiating exten- 
sions of the trunk and root, such as several travellers have repre- 
sented in their descriptions. At the lower part of the tree the bark 
is rugged, with fissures, and often covered with a resinous and 
glittering, sometimes yellowish substance, which is transparent, 
and con'sists either of camphor or of camphor and its peculiar re- 
sin. Higher up, the bark is of a dark grey color, here and 
there covered with lichens, but not with Lia?ies } like so many 
other trees. 
The position of the leaves is alternate, as shown in the drawing 
of Houttuyn. Colebrooke describes a branch without fruits, 
with opposite leaves. Has Dryobalanops Camphora sometimes a 
position of leaves such as Colebrooke describes ? We can scarcely 
doubt the accuracy of his descriptions — they have too much the 
appearance of truth about them ; and all that he has communi- 
cated of the tree and of the substances which it produces, gives 
us the conviction that M. Colebrooke must have had specimens 
