| 
ANKER. 
bundles and garlands of it in the ceremonies of 
their heathenish superstition. The plant is easily 
propagated in Britain by layers, and can be pro- 
pagated also by cuttings. Its appearance, when 
out of flower as well as when in bloom, is decidedly 
ornamental. 
ANJOU CABBAGE. See Cassacnz. 
ANKER. A measure of liquids, particularly 
spirits, in use in various European countries. 
The English anker contains 10 wine-gallons, or 
83 imperial gallons, or 2310°62 cubic inches. The 
Scottish anker of 20 pints is equal to about 7$ 
imperial gallons. In Amsterdam the anker is 
the fourth part of the Aam: see that article. In 
| Russia it is the sixth part of an oxhoft, which is 
equal to 54-428 English wine-gallons. The Stet- 
tin anker contains 13:7 English wine-gallons, or 
11:417 imperial gallons—WVacgregor’s Commercial 
| Tariffs—Kelly’s Cambist. 
ANNONA. A genus of tropical fruit and or- 
hamental trees and shrubs, forming the type of a 
| natural order, and nearly allied to the Magnolia 
family. Seven species have been introduced to 
Great Britain; and about twenty-nine other spe- 
cies are known to botanists. Four of the intro- 
duced species—the sour-sop, the sweet-sop, the 
| netted, and the smooth-fruited —are evergreen 
trees, growing to the height of from 10 to 20 
| feet ; two—the marsh and the cork-wood—are 
evergreen shrubs, growing to the height of from 
4 to 6 feet; and one, the cherimoyer, is a deci- 
| duous tree, growing to the height of 18 feet. All 
these seven species are natives of the tropical 
portion of America and the West Indies. The 
fruits of most of the genus are soft, pulpy, sub- 
acid berries; and in some instances are as large 
as oranges. The fruit of the sour-sop species 
abounds throughout Jamaica, is large, succulent, 
and similar in flavour to black currants, and, 
though much relished by Europeans, is so com- 
| mon in the island and so generally used by the 
poor negroes, as to be fashionably depreciated by 
the wealthy. The fruit of the cherimoyer spe- 
cies 1s oblong, scaly on the outside, and of a 
dark purple colour when ripe; it is soft, sweet, 
and most delicious; and it is esteemed by the 
Peruvians as one of the best fruits of their 
country, and has even obtained the reputation 
of being the finest fruit in the world, excepting 
the mangosteen. The fruit of the cork-wood 
Species is sweet and fragrant, but narcotic, and 
therefore not eaten; and the bark of its tree 
‘serves the inhabitants of Jamaica for corks, 
and is popularly called the Jamaica cork-wood. 
One of the introduced species grows in the open 
air in England as an ornamental plant, but does 
not in that situation mature its fruit; and the 
other species require to be cultivated in the 
stove, and may there be easily fruited.—The or- 
der Annonacez comprises the genera annona, 
uvaria, unona, monodora, eupomatia, artabotrys, 
guatteria, asimina, and xylopia ; it consists wholly 
\s trees and shrubs; it is, with a few exceptions, 
| . 
ANNOTTA. 197 
found wild only within the tropics; and it is so 
closely allied to the order Magnoliaceze as to be 
distinguishable from it only by minute botanical 
features. 
ANNOTTA, or Arnarro,—botanically Bira 
Orellana. An evergreen tree of the West Indies, 
forming the type of the small natural order of 
plants called Bixinis, and remarkable for fur- 
nishing the well-known colouring annotta of 
commerce and of the dairy. Most of the plants 
of the order bixinize are tropical; and all are 
trees or shrubs ; but they are few in number, and 
of little interest. The only genera known in 
Britain are bixa and prockia ; and the only spe- 
cies of bixa known is orellana, the annotta. This 
plant grows twenty feet high, carries pink flowers, 
blooms from May till August, and can be success- 
fully cultivated in Britain only in the stove. The 
bark is used by the inhabitants of Jamaica as 
material for ropes, and pieces of the wood as 
means of procuring fire by friction. The annotta 
of commerce is a precipitate from maceration of 
the red pulp which covers the seeds of the plant. 
One variety of it is manufactured in Cayenne 
into flags or cakes, each 2 lbs. or 3 lbs. in weight, 
of a bright yellow colour, softish to the touch, of 
considerable solidity, and usually wrapped in 
banana leaves ; and another variety—that com- 
monly employed in English dairies—is manufac- 
tured in Brazil into small rolls, each two or 
three ounces in weight, hard, dry, and compact, 
brownish without and red within. This sub- 
stance has the reputation of being cooling and 
cordial ; it is much used by the Spaniards to 
colour and flavour their chocolate and soups; 
and it has been recommended as of some service 
in bloody fluxes and disease of the kidneys. — It 
is mixed with lemon-juice and a gum to form the 
crimson paint with which the Indians decorate 
their persons. It was formerly much used by 
dyers to form the colour called aurora ; but was 
found to be comparatively evanescent, and it has 
in a great measure been abandoned. It con- 
tinues to be employed, to some extent, as a pig- 
ment by painters. But its grand interest to the 
farmer consists in its very extensive use as a 
colouring matter for butter, and especially for 
cheese. A few of the paler-coloured yellow 
or orange cheeses are coloured with marigold 
flowers, saffron, and carrots; but most of. even 
the paler-coloured, and all the high-coloured, 
derive the whole of their peculiar complexion 
from annotta. The cheese-makers of Gloucester- 
shire give one ounce of annotta to one ewt. of 
cheese ; and those of Cheshire give eight dwts. 
to 60 lbs. But as these quantities are far too 
small to medicate the cheese, or even to affect 
its flavour, the only advantage derived from the 
annotta is mere colour; and surely the appear- 
ance of Stilton or Dunlop cheese upon the table 
is to the full as agreeable as that of Gloucester- 
shire or Cheshire cheese. The use of annotta, 
therefore, is sheerly whimsical, imposing per- 
— 
Dee 
ee 
