BONDUC. 
bondue, Gulandina bonduc, usually grows to the 
height of 12 or 14 feet, twines around any neigh- 
bouring support, and is armed athwart its stem, 
with crooked thorns. Each leaf is usually 18 
inches in length, and doubly pinnated; its pri- 
mary wings amount to 6 or 7 pairs; its leaflets 
or secondary wings are oval, and entire, and 
amount to 6 or 7 pairs on each primary wing ; 
and its footstalk or principal midrib is armed 
with thorns similar to those of the stem, but 
smaller. Its flowers have a yellow colour, and 
are produced in long spikes from the wings of 
the stalk; and its pod is about 3 inches long and 
2 broad, closely armed with slender spines, open- 
ing with two valves, and containing hard yellow- 
ish seeds about the size of children’s marbles.— 
The small bonduc, Gulandina bonducella, grows 
to the height of only 8 or 10 feet ; its leaves are 
smaller and more closely set than those of the 
greater bonduc; its flowers are of a deeper yel- 
low; and its seeds are ash-coloured, very bitter, 
yet not unpleasant to the taste, and are used in 
India as a tonic, as a febrifuge, and for some 
other medicinal purposes. 
BONDUC (Harpy), or Kentucky Corrrz-TRne, 
—botanically Gymnocladus. An ornamental de- 
ciduous tree, of the pea tribe. The Canadian 
hardy bonduc, Gymnocladus canadiensis, is the 
only species of gymnocladus known; and it was 
formerly included in the genus guilandina. It 
was introduced to Britain in 1748, by the Duke 
of Argyle; but, though quite hardy, it seems 
never to have been yet cultivated in this country 
as a forest tree, or any where but in the garden. 
It grows wild on the banks of lakes Erie and 
Ontario, and in the states of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee, It usually attains a height of only about 
20 feet ; but specimens were seen by Michaux of 
the height of 50 or 60 feet. Its stem is erect, 
firm, and comparatively very lofty before branch- 
ing, yet seldom exceeds 12 or 15 inches in dia- 
meter; the bark of its stem is very rough, and 
becomes detached in small vertical stripes, but 
the bark of its branches is smooth, bluish, and 
ash-coloured ; its leaves are doubly pinnate, three 
feet long, and 20 inches broad, and the folioles 
of them are large, smooth, entire, and ranged 
alternately on the midrib; its flowers have a 
white colour, and appear in July and August; 
and its seeds lie embedded in a pulp in one- 
celled legumes, but, notwithstanding their name 
of Kentucky coffee, do not seem to possess 
any culinary value. A full grown tree has a 
very fine appearance in summer. The duramen 
or heartwood constitutes a singularly large and 
profitable proportion of the stem ; for, in a dia- 
meter of six inches, the alburnum constitutes 
only six lines. The timber has a rosy hue, is 
very compact, and seems well adapted for not a 
few purposes of the cabinet-maker. This tree 
may be propagated from either seeds or layers ; 
but the seeds must be procured from America ; 
and, when sown, they often lie two years be- 
BONE. 471 
fore sending up the plumules of the young 
plants. 
BONE. The different parts of the skeleton, or 
that solid framework which supports or protects 
the soft parts of the body of the higher orders of 
animals, are called bones; and owe their solidity 
to inorganic earthy materials which they contain. 
Bones are not equally compact throughout their 
whole substance, but exhibit on their surfaces an 
osseous mass of a denser nature, while their in- 
terior part forms a more or less cellular or spongy 
mass. The bones are covered both externally 
and internally by a membrane called periosteum, 
by which the ramifications of the blood-vessels 
and the nerves pass into them. This membrane is 
formed by a dense tissue which, by boiling with 
water, is converted into gelatin or glue. The 
long or cylindrical bones, such as those of the 
extremities, are hollow, and generally filled with 
marrow. ‘The bones themselves consist of a liv- 
ing or organic portion, formed of cartilage ; and 
an earthy or inorganic, formed mainly of phos- 
phate of lime, with a certain portion of carbonate 
of lime. The cartilaginous portion of bone is 
formed before the deposition of the earthy takes 
place, and the ossification always starts from cer- 
tain fixed points, called points of ossification. 
The mode of combination of the organic with the 
earthy matter is not well understood, but it is 
generally supposed to exist by the extremely 
small cavities of the former, receiving earthy 
particles in the same way that a sponge holds 
water. 
The organic or cartilaginous portion of the 
bones may be obtained in a separate state by im- 
mersion of a bone in diluted muriatic acid at a 
temperature of 54° or less. The acid dissolves 
the earthy portion without attacking perceptibly 
the cartilaginous, which is then freed from re- 
maining acid by repeated steepings in cold water, 
and remains in the original form of the bone, but 
transparent, flexible, and elastic. By drying, it 
shrivels up, and becomes hard and brittle, but 
remains translucent. It is entirely converted 
into gelatin by boiling in water, with the excep- 
tion of a few fibres, derived from the fine blood- 
vessels, which remain insoluble and may be se- 
parated by filtration. If bones be treated by 
heat with dilute hydrochloric acid, a portion of 
the cartilage is dissolved, and a disengagement of 
carbonic acid is apparent, by which the bone, 
when half dissolved, begins to separate into 
fibrous longitudinal laminas, having the power, 
like mica, to polarize light. 
The earthy or inorganic portion of bone consists 
mainly of phosphate and carbonate of lime in 
different relative proportions in different tribes 
of animals, and mixed with small and variable 
portions of phosphate of magnesia and fluoride of 
calcium. 
The earthy portion of bone or bone-ash is easiest 
obtained by calcination of bones, but it then con- 
tains substances which do not exist in them ori- 
ee 
