36  The  Apocynacece  in  Materia  Medica.    {A  January Pi895.m' 
ticels  extremely  numerous,  transversely  elongated  and  irregular, 
forming  a  striation,  close,  and  light  brown.  The  commercial  fruit  is 
more  or  less  scraped  ;  bearing  at  times  the  remains  of  the  fibres  of 
the  mesocarp,  appearing  as  longitudinal  striations.  More  fre- 
quently the  endocarp  alone  remains,  straight  or  curved,  always 
fragile  and  frequently  broken,  the  color  yellowish  or  clear  fawn,  or 
a  little  reddish,  often  marked  by  regions  more  deeply  brown,  longi- 
tudinal and  badly  limited.  The  lower  extremity  is  notched,  the 
upper  extremity  always  broken.  The  internal  face  is  shining,  color 
a  little  green.  It  is  about  25-35  centimetres  in  length  and  2  centi- 
metres in  diameter. 
The  structure  of  the  pericarp  is  a  little  different  from  that  of  kS. 
Jiispidus  and  that  of  5\  niger  ;  the  parenchyma  cells  here  are  sinu- 
ous, flattened,  or  in  some  regions  more  open.  The  sclerotic  fibres 
are  nearly  constantly  associated  with  a  ligneous  bundle.  The  longi- 
tudinal fibres  are  flattened  quite  regularly. 
The  seeds  are  striking  at  once  by  their  color,  generally  light, 
their  surface  strongly  tomentose,  their  silky  changeable  lustre. 
The  seeds  isolated,  as  they  ordinarily  arrive  in  commerce,  are  in 
form  lanceolate,  at  times  rounded  at  the  base,  at  other  times  much 
more  slender  even  in  the  same  specimen.  The  dimensions  are  1 1— 
22  millimetres  in  length,  2^-5  millimetres  in  breadth,  and  1-2  milli- 
metres thick.  The  margin  is  often  sinuate,  one  face  quite  plane  or 
even  concave.  The  surface  is  covered  with  hairs  much  longer,  much 
closer,  more  woolly  than  in  the  i>.  hispidus)  and  quite  visible  to 
the  naked  eye.  They  vary  in  color  from  cream  white  to  nearly  a 
brown,  with  all  the  intermediary  colors  and  sometimes  even  with  a 
little  different  tint  upon  the  two  faces  of  the  seed.  But  the  color 
ordinarily  is  a  greenish  gray  or  a  greenish  yellow.  From  handling 
the  hairs  drop  off  and  the  color  then  becomes  a  little  more  deep. 
The  raphe  is  ordinarily  well  marked,  very  prominent  on  one  side, 
and  quite  long,  The  fracture  is  white  or  grayish  ;  the  odor  is  speci- 
ally well  marked,  but  only  if  we  scrape  the  seed ;  the  taste  is 
atrociously  bitter. 
The  awn  which  surmounts  the  seed  is  very  handsome  ;  the  color 
a  little  grayish  in  mass,  and  is  borne  upon  a  very  long  shaft  of  which 
the  naked  part  is  always  much  longer  than  the  plumed  part,  but  not 
three  or  four  times  as  long,  as  some  one  has  said.  The  naked  part 
generally  4-5  centimetres  and  the  plume  3-4  centimetres.  The  hairs 
