eighteen or twenty months, the roots of these 
attain their full size; and while the plants are 
growing, sedulous care is practised to prevent 
their upward growth, by breaking out their buds. 
Kach plantation usually yields three crops, and 
is then abandoned. The natives, in many in- 
stances, eat the whole tubers, with no other pre- 
paration than roasting in hot ashes; but, more 
generally, they first manufacture them into flour, 
and then bake this into cakes; and, too often, 
they ferment their juice, with molasses, into 
an intoxicating drink. Cassava bread, though 
usually not well relished for a time by foreigners, 
is preferred by the natives and by creoles to all 
other bread; and it is exceedingly nourishing, 
and melts to a jelly in a liquid. The tapioca of 
commerce is manufactured from the tubers in a 
manner which converts a considerable portion of 
their starch into amidine; and it is chemically 
identical with pure potato-starch, modified in a 
certain manner and to a certain extent with 
heat. 
The sweet cassava, Janipha leflingii, formerly 
Jatropha janipha, was introduced to Britain from 
Carthagena in 1820. It in all respects very 
| closely resembles the bitter cassava in appear- 
| ance; and is principally distinguishable by the 
absence of poisonous volatile oil. Even its tubers 
have no perceptible organic difference, except a 
tough ligneous fibre which runs through their 
heart ; and they are used for precisely the same 
alimentary purposes ‘as those of the bitter cas- 
sava ; yet, in spite of their innocuousness, are far 
less extensively in favour. Might not both of 
the cassavas be so cultivated in British posses- 
sions, within and near the tropics, as to afford to 
our home market a large and chief supply of as 
delicate a farina as that of prime arrow-root ? 
CASSIA. An extensive genus of yellow-flow- 
ering plants, principally tropical shrubs, of the 
ceesalpinia division of the leguminous order. Up- 
wards of two hundred species are known to 
botanists ; and more than one half of these have 
been introduced to Great Britain. About twenty 
of the introduced species are annuals, four are 
biennials, two are perennial herbs, and nearly all 
the others are evergreen shrubs. Seven or eight 
are medicinal; and the greater number are orna- 
mental. But additional to these are five or six 
species, mostly medicinal evergreen trees, which 
formerly belonged to the genus cassia, but are 
now included in the genus cathartocarpus. 
Three species of cassia, C. obovata, C. lanceolata, 
and C. ttalica, produce the well-known cathartic 
senna leaves of the drug shops. See the article 
Sznna.—The fistula species, C. fistula, now called 
Cathartocarpus fistula, is an evergreen tree of 
Kgypt, Hindostan, and the West Indies. Its stem 
is thick, about forty or fifty feet high, covered with 
a soft cineritious bark, and much branched at the 
top ; its leaves are pinnated, and consist of six 
pairs of ovate, undulated, pointed, peduncled 
leaflets ; its flowers have a golden colour, and are 
CASSIA. 723 
produced in long pendent, terminal spikes, and 
appear in June ; its pods are dark-brown, woody, 
cylindrical, almost an inch thick, and nearly two 
feet long ; and its seeds are smooth, shining, yel- 
lowish, and oval, and lie imbedded in a soft black 
pulp. The pulp around the seeds is medicinal, 
and has long been known in British pharmacy as 
the chief ingredient in the electuary or confec- 
tion of senna. It is viscid, and has a sweet mu- 
cilaginous taste, and a somewhat sickening odour; 
and was supposed by Vauquelin to contain sugar, 
gelatin, gluten, mucus, resin, extractive, and col- 
ouring matter. Its chief use is as a gentle laxa- 
tive to children. 
The winged species, C. alata, is a native of both 
the West and the East Indies, and was introduced 
from the former to Britain in 1731. It has an 
ornamental appearance, and usually attains a 
height of twelve or fourteen feet. Its broad 
leaves, gathered fresh, bruised, and rubbed upon 
the part affected, are regarded in India as a cure 
for ringworm ; and the juice of the leaves, mixed 
with lime juice, is believed to be still more effica- 
cious.—The eared species, C. auriculata, is a com- 
mon jungle shrub of India, and was first brought 
to Britain in 1777. It carries very beautiful 
yellow flowers, and is usually about four feet 
high. Its small, flat, heart-shaped, pleasant-tasted 
seeds are used, in the medical practice of India, 
as refrigerants and attenuants; and when re- 
duced to fine powder, are blown into the eyes as 
a cure for ophthalmia. Both the bark of the stem 
and the whole substance of the small unpeeled 
branches, are used for tanning leather, particu- 
larly out of neat skins——The sophora species, 
C.. sophora, was introduced to Britain from India 
so early as about the middle of the 17th century. 
It usually grows about four feet high, and blooms 
from July till September. Its leaves are nearly 
three inches long; and the juice of these and of the 
root, when mixed with lime juice, is medicinally 
used in India for the same purposes as the juice 
of the winged species.—The Tora species, C. tora, 
is an ugly annual of India, growing a yard high, 
and flowering in August. Its leaves are mucila- 
ginous, pleasant-tasted, and gently aperient; and | 
are used in India as a remedy for the feverishness 
which accompanies dentition in children. Its 
seeds are liver-coloured and slightly compressed ; 
and are used in preparing a blue dye, which is 
usually fixed with lime water.—The Tarantan 
species, C. tarantan, an evergreen undershrub of 
twenty inches in height, introduced from Cuma- 
na,—Richard’s species, C. Richardiana, an ever- 
green undershrub of the same height as the 
preceding, introduced also from Cumana,—the 
ciliated species, C. ciliata, an evergreen under- 
shrub of a foot in height, introduced from Cuba, 
—the humble species, C. humilis, a biennial of a 
foot in height, introduced from South America, 
—the ciliated-leaved species, C. ezliaris, a bien- 
nial of a foot in height, introduced from India,— 
and the five-angled species, C. pentagona, a bien- 
