employed for the same purposes as Aristolochia Serpentaria. A kind of paper is manufactured from Broussonetia papyrifera, whose fruit is succulent and insipid. The fruit of Maclura aurantiaca, (the Osage Orange), is as large as the fist, orange-coloured, and filled with a yellow foetid slime, with which the native tribes smear their faces when going to war. The wood of Maclura tinctoria is the dyewood called Fustick; it contains morine, a peculiar colouring matter: its fruit is pleasant, and used in North American medicine, for the same purposes as the black Mulberry in Europe. According to Martius, both it and other species of the same genus yield fustick in Brazil. It is to be observed, that the latter name is also given to the wood of Rhus Cotinus. The seeds of Ficus religiosa are supposed by the doctors of India to be cooling and alterative. The bark of Ficus racemosa is slightly astringent, and has particular virtues in hæmaturia and menorrhagia; the juice of its root is considered a powerful tonic. The white glutinous juice of Ficus indica is applied to the teeth and gums, to ease the toothache; it is also considered a valuable application to the soles of the feet when cracked and inflamed; the hark is supposed to be a powerful tonic, and is administered by the Hindoos in diabetes. Is it not possible that the Indian poison with which the Nagas tip their arrows, of the tree that produces which nothing is known, may belong to this tribe! See, for an account of its effects, Brewster's Journal, 9. 219.

The Abyssinians eat the inner bark of Ficus panifica, which tastes somewhat like bread. Ach. Rich.

See Gasparrini, Ricerche sulla natura del Caprifico e del Fico, e sulla Caprificazione, 4to, Napoli, 1845.

Fig CLXXXII.-Perpendicular section of the succulent hollow receptacle of Ficus Carica.

ORDER LXXXVIII. ARTOCARPACEE.-ARTOCARPADS.

Artocarpeæ, R. Brown in Congo, (1818); Blume By. Dr. 479; Ed. prim. No. 80, (1830); Burti. Ord. Nat. 104; Endl. xciii.; Meisner, p. 349; Bennet in Horsfield, p. 48.

DIAGNOSIS.-Urtical Exogens, with milky juice, large convolute stipules, solitary erect or suspended ovules, a straight exalbuminous embryo, and superior radicle.

Trees or shrubs, abounding in milky juice. Leaves alternate, simple, often lobed, with large deciduous stipules. Flowers, always collected into dense heads of some kind.

calyx sometimes 0, and then the stamens mixed with scales; or consisting of 2 to 4 sepals, which are often united into a tube, with scarcely any limb. Stamens opposite the sepals, and usually of the same number; filaments sometimes connate; anthers 2-celled, erect or incumbent, rarely peltate, and opening all round into 2 plates. ? Flowers variously arranged over a fleshy receptacle, which is concave or globose, hemispherical or spiked; calyx tubular, with a 2 to 4-cleft or entire limb. Ovary free, 1-celled; ovule either erect and orthotropal, or amphitropal and parietal, or pendulous and anatropal, in any case with the foramen uppermost ; style lateral or terminal, usually bifid, occasionally undivided with a simple lateral or radiating stigma. Fruit variable, surrounded by a fleshy involucre, or com

rosed of consolidated fleshy calyxes, within which lies a multitude of nuts. Seed erect, parietal, or pendulous. Embryo with much or very little albumen, straight, with the radicle directed towards the vertex of the ovary; cotyledons thick and fleshy, when the albumen is deficient, thin when it is abundant, often very unequal.

Fig. CLXXXIII.-Artocarpus incisa, with a ripe fruit, a head off, and a pendulous club-shaped spike of flowers. 1. A flower: 2. a cut out of the globular head: 3. a section of the ovary, show ing the position of the ovule, 4. a section of a seed: partly after Hooker.

The massive heads into which the fruits of the Breadfruit tree are collected represent the typical condition of the genera of this Order, whose milky juice has long since sug gested its separation from Nettleworts; an opinion, however, in which it was difficult to agree, so long as the Fig and its allies were associated with it by that character. Now, however, that such plants have been more carefully studied, it appears that the old Urticaceous Order should rather be regarded

as an Alliance, of which the Artocarpads form one of the Orders. In that point of view the Artocarpads will be distinguished from Hempworts and Morads by their straight embryo with large cotyledons, and from Antidesmads by their anthers and solitary ovules. From Nettleworts the difference is rather one of habit than of real structure, as far as our information at present goes. Brown, indeed, who first proposed the Order, stated that the ovule was erect, which, however, is not the case in either Artocarpus or Maclura, both which have a suspended ovule. Endlicher, on 2 the other hand, relies upon the absence of albumen; but a trace of it occurs in Artocarpus, and in Phytocrene it is extremely abundant, to say nothing of Pyrenacantha. Perhaps the large convolute stipules may form a further characteristic of Artocarpads.

With respect to Phytocrene, which is considered by M. Decaisne identical with Gynocephalium, I find that it is remarkable for a very large quantity of granular albumen, which Blume says is altogether wanting in Gynocephalium; I therefore retain it as a distinct genus.

The Order is not without anomalies. Phytocrene and Pyrenacantha have copious albumen. In Antiaris the ovary adheres to the involucre. It is doubtful whether all yield milk.

The tropics, and the tropics only, of both worlds, are the stations of these plants. The most important plant of the Order is the Breadfruit, Artocarpus incisa, the most virulent the Upas tree, Antiaris toxicaria. Like Morads the species afford caoutchouc and an eatable fruit.

The edible quality of the Breadfruit appears to be owing to the presence of a large quantity of starch in its succulent heads. The Jack, Artocarpus integrifolia, has a similar quality, but is inferior. The venom of the Antjar poison, Antiaris toxicaria, is due to the presence of that most deadly substance strychnia; notwithstanding the exaggerated statements that have been made regarding this tree, the Upas of the Javanese, there remains no doubt that it is a plant of extreme virulence, even linen fabricated from its tough fibre being so acrid as to verify the story of the shirt of Nessus; for it excites the most distressing itching if insufficiently prepared.

However, the seeds are always wholesome; those of a plant nearly allied to Cecropia, called Musanga by the Africans of the Gold Coast, as well as of Artocarpus, are eatable as nuts. The famous Cow Tree, or Palo de Vaca, of South America, which yields a Fig. CLXXXV. copious supply of a rich and wholesome milk, as good as that of the cow, is a species of Brosimum. It has been analysed by various chemists, especially Mr. Edward Solly, who found in it as much as 30-57 per cent. of galactin. See Phil. Mag., Nov. 1837. Brosimum alicastrum abounds in a tenacious gummy milk; its leaves and young shoots are much eaten by cattle, but when they become old they cease to be innocuous. The roasted nuts are used instead of bread, and have much

Fig. CLXXXIV.-I. Nut of Phytocrene: 2. the same, showing the seed in its interior; 3. a cross section of the seed, showing the cotyledons and granular albumen; 4. the club-shaped radicle. Fig. CLXXXV.-Artocarpus integrifolia.

the taste of Hazel nuts. The milkiness of the sap is in itself an evidence of the presence of caoutchouc, and accordingly the tree Ule of Papantla, from which caoutchouc is obtained in that country, is supposed to be Castilloa elastica, a plant of this Order. A similar substance is obtained from Cecropia peltata, a very common tropical tree. The bark of this plant, remarkable for its stems being hollow between the nodes, is astringent, and used in diarrhoea and gonorrhoea. The tight porous wood is employed by the American savages to give them light by friction.

From a species of Antiaris (called by Mr. Nimmo Lepurandra saccidora), sacks are made in Western India by the following singular process. "A branch is cut corresponding to the length and diameter of the sack wanted. It is soaked a little, and then beaten with clubs till the fibre separates from the wood. This done, the sack formed of the bark is turned inside out, and pulled down till the wood is sawed off, with the exception of a small piece left to form the bottom of the sack." These sacks are in general use. A specimen of them was exhibited to the Linnean Society some years ago. Here there is no trace of the virulence of the Upas tree, and notwithstanding the fatal character of that species, others appear to be also inert. In the province of Martaban, Dr. Wallich found his Water Vine (Phytocrene), whose singular soft and porous wood discharges when wounded a very large quantity of pure and tasteless fluid, which is quite wholesome, and is drunk by the natives. This is an extraordinary exception to the usual character of the Order, and if the plant be really destitute of milk, it will break down very much the limit between Artocarpads and Nettleworts, unless, indeed, Phytocrene is out of its place, which its copious albumen (?) leads one to suspect. Martius says that the fruit of Pourouma bicolor is sub-acid, and worth cultivation, although mucilaginous. Snake-wood, or Bois de Lettres, so called because of the markings which it presents, is obtained from the Brosimum, called by Aublet Piratinera guianensis, a tree 60 or 70 feet high, whose beautiful timber is so hard that it can only be felled by the American axe. -Schomb.

PHYTOCRENACEÆ.

'Phytoerenacea, Miers, MSS-Phytocreneæ, Arno't, Edinb. New Phil, Jo. xvi. 314; Endl. Gen. p. 828; R. Brown in Pl. Jar. rar. p. 244; Blume Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. i. 41, fig. vii.-Phytocrene, Wall. Pl. As. rar. iii. 11, tab. 216.

Climbing shrubs, with wood marked by strong medullary rays with intervening bundles of open ducts. Leaves petioled, entire, or palmately lobed, alternate or

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3

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opposite. Flowers small, in axillary panicles sometimes glomerately spicated,

in capitular clusters upon simple pe4 dicels, unisexual by abortion. Sepals 4-5. Petals 4-5, alternate with sepals, and longer than them, valvate in æstivation. Stamens equal in number to, and alternate with, the petals, introrse, 2-lobed, lobes often distinct upon a fleshy connective, divaricate at base, each lobe bursting in front longitudinally, filaments springing from a more or less stipitate androphore, which has sometimes 10 distinct erect 5 lobes intermediate in pairs between the stamens. Ovary sterile. ? Sepals and petals as in 3. Stamens anantherous. Ovarium seated on a stipitate gynophore and confounded with the style, 1-locular (by abortion?): ovules 2, suspended from summit of cell. Style thick and columnar, longer than petals, rising directly from the gynophore with the small cell of the ovary in its base. Stigma large, pulviniform, overhanging the style, sub-bilobed. Drupes either distinct and small or many agglomerated upon a fleshy receptacle into a great fruit the size of a man's head, each component drupe being 4 inches long, distinct upon a short pedicel, with a single indehiscent putamen, which is scrobiculated and 1-locular, with a single seed attached by a long umbilical cord. Albumen copious, simple, or sometimes corrugated into numerous serpentine plates or granular lobes; cotyledons large, foliaceous, flat or plicated lengthways; radicle small, directed towards the hilum.

6

"The Phytocreneæ were first formed into a distinct group by Dr. Arnott (1834), who thought they were allied to Hernandiaceæ. Endlicher placed them as a suborder of the Menispermacea, with which family they will be seen to hold no relation, their only points of resemblance being their climbing habit, the structure of their wood, and their unisexual flowers. By Prof. Lindley the group was not acknowledged, the genera being arranged among Artocarpaceæ, for reasons stated (huj. op. 270). Mr. Brown lately has supported the maintenance of the family (Pl. Jav. rar. 224), where he combats the view of Dr. Arnott in regard to its affinity, but offers no opinion of his own on this head; Sarcostigma is there placed in that order, but almost simultaneously with this determination I published my reasons for fixing that genus in a peculiar tribe of the Icacinacea (Ann. Nat. Hist. Ser. 2, x. 113). Phytocrene has been shown to be identical with Gynocephalum by Decaisne and Trecul, and acknowledged by Blume, who has lately published an ample analysis and character of the genus. Miquelia is there placed by Blume in the same group; but I have offered reasons to show that it cannot belong to the same family, its position being rather near Pyrenacantha (loc. cit.) Iodes has opposite leaves, its fruit is small, with simple albumen, and flat cotyledons, features that differ from Phytocrene; it is not therefore certain that it really belongs to this group.

Fig. CLXXXV. bis.-Fructification of Phytocrene macrophylla-after Blume. 1. head of flowers; 2. male flower; 3. calyx ; 4. head of female flowers; 5. female flower; 6. seed: 7. section of albumen and embryo; 8. ovules.