006 BRUNSVIGIA. 
green, ornamental shrubs, of the nightshade tribe. 
Only four species are known; and all have been 
introduced to Britain. The American or longest- 
known species, Brunsfelsia americana, was brought 
from the West Indies in 1735. Its stem is lig- 
neous, sends out many side branches, and usually 
attains a height of from four to ten feet; its 
branches are covered with a rough bark; its 
leaves are oblong-oval and entire ; its flowers are 
produced in threes and fours from the end of the 
branches, have a pale yellow colour, and are almost 
as large as those of the greater convolvulus; and 
its fruit is soft and round, and encloses, in a state 
of adherence to its skin, many oval seeds. This 
plant grows wild in most of the Sugar islands of 
the west, and is there called the trumpet-flower. 
BRUNSVIGIA. A genus of bulbous plants, of 
the amaryllis tribe. Upwards of a dozen species 
are known to botanists, and all are natives of the 
Cape of Good Hope, and have been introduced to 
Great Britain; but about one half were formerly 
included in the genera amaryllis, ammocharis, 
and hemanthus. Most have a height of about 
12 or 15 inches, and produce flowers of some 
shade of red, between pink and scarlet. One of 
the most esteemed species for ornamental pur- 
| poses is Brunsvigia Josephine ; and this produces 
scarlet flowers from June till August, and com- 
prises two principal varieties, the minor and the 
striated. One of the species, Brunsvigia toxicaria, 
formerly Hemanthus tovicarius, is popularly called 
the poison-bulb, and yields a viscid poisonous 
juice, with which the Hottentots poison their 
arrows; and another of the species, Brunsvigia 
coranica, formerly Ammocharis coranica, is popu- 
larly called the Coranic poison-bulb, and has also 
poisonous properties. 
BRUSHWOOD. Masses, thickets, and cop- 
pices of indigenous shrubs and dwarfed trees. 
Brushwood is sometimes identified with the lop- 
pings and clearings of woods for fuel, and some- 
times with browse-wood or such twiggy and suc- 
culent growth of timber-plants as is suitable for 
consumption by cattle ; but it is more appro- 
priately, and far more generally, made to signify 
thickety masses, whether small or great, of na- 
tive ligneous plants. Brushwood, thus under- 
stood, consists of all kinds of indigenous trees, 
growing stintedly, irregularly, and neglectedly, 
and wanting some economical member, such as 
the bark of the oak or the twig of the osier, to 
render them remunerative to the proprietor or 
the tenant of the soil; and it particularly includes 
dwarfish and amassed plants of the birch, the 
| poplar, the alder, the mountain-ash, the hazel, 
the thorn, the lime-tree, the willow, and the 
holly. 
In many districts, brushwood occupies large 
ageregates of land in such a manner as to be 
both unsightly to the eye, and useless to the 
| tenant or proprietor; and in some, it so com- 
| pletely covers many choice or naturally fertile 
tracts of soil, as to render them incapable of 
BRUSSELS SPROUTS. 
producing any tolerable quantity of herhage, 
and, at the same time, to prevent them from 
being georgically improved. When it is kept 
low by cattle browsing on its shoots as they rise, 
and is systematically consumed as part of their 
regular food, it benefits live stock, partly by the 
shelter which it affords, and very greatly by the 
nutriment which it yields; but when it is al- 
lowed to become so old and hard as to be unfit 
for browsing, it ought either to be exterminated 
from all fertile lands, or converted to some pro- 
fitable use on such lands as cannot afford the 
cost of its extermination. 
One general and easy mode of rendering all 
brushwood profitable, is to select such plants as 
promise to rise into useful and ornamental forest 
timber, and to cut down all the rest for conver- 
sion into charcoal. A great extent of land at 
present almost useless, might either be thinned 
into valuable forest, or cleared into profitable 
meadow or pasturage, dotted with the choicer 
trees; and the charcoal manufactured from the 
ejected brushwood might be remuneratingly ap- 
plied in iron-works, in gunpowder-works, and in 
various other ways. Brushwood may also be 
advantageously used, in its smallest as well as 
largest parts, for common fuel, and for construct- 
ing the roofs of cottages ; and it may be employed 
likewise for making dead-fences around fields 
and plantations, wattles or hurdles in outbuild- 
ings, temporary wears for sheep and cattle, and, 
in some instances, baskets, hampers, and numer- 
ous small articles of both utility and ornament. 
“The extension of the herring and butter 
trades, and the introduction of the circular saw,” 
remarks Mr. Blaikie, “ have operated very fa- 
vourably in raising the value of alder and other 
underwoods, and opened an ample field for dis- 
posing of them. ‘These saws may be attached to 
a thrashing-mill, should there be one in the 
neighbourhood; and, if not, portable ones may 
be constructed at small expense, to be impelled 
either by water, by horses, or by human power. | 
As there can be no doubt that the demand | 
for small staves will be great and increasing, it 
would be a likely speculation to raise both alder | 
and birch in situations where there is no chance 
of rearing oak and more valuable timber to per- 
fection, for that purpose alone. ‘To allude to the 
making of packing-cases, as opening a demand 
of any extent for the consumption of poplar, may 
at first sight appear to many to be fanciful and 
ridiculous. But those who are best acquainted 
with the American timber trade will admit that, 
before the late stagnation, large quantities of 
yellow pine were sold as high as from Is. 10d. to 
2s. per foot, to be so employed, at most of the 
principal ports of Britain.” Important hints as 
to the higher uses to which the several kinds of 
brushwood may be turned, occur in our articles 
on the respective indigenous trees of Great Bri- 
tain. See also the articles Coppice and Bark. 
BRUSSELS SPROUTS. A subvariety of the | | 
eel 
