. The vegetable kingdom : or, The structure, classification, and uses of plants, illustrated upon the natural system. very durable. The bark is bitter, and is used by the Arawaak Indians as anemetic. The Purple Heart, a Guiana timber tree of great toughness, whose timber isfound invaluable for resisting the shock of artillery discharges, on which account it isemployed for mortar beds, is the Copaifera pubiflora and bracteata. The balsam is saidto gush out of the heart of these trees in large quantities when wounded. The size of the timber is sometimes prodigious. The Locust-trees of the West h
. The vegetable kingdom : or, The structure, classification, and uses of plants, illustrated upon the natural system. very durable. The bark is bitter, and is used by the Arawaak Indians as anemetic. The Purple Heart, a Guiana timber tree of great toughness, whose timber isfound invaluable for resisting the shock of artillery discharges, on which account it isemployed for mortar beds, is the Copaifera pubiflora and bracteata. The balsam is saidto gush out of the heart of these trees in large quantities when wounded. The size of the timber is sometimes prodigious. The Locust-trees of the West have Fig. CCCLXXIII.—Cassia acutifolia. 1. a flower somewhat magnified. ROSALES.] 551 long been celebrated for their gigantic stature, and other species are the Colossi ofSouth American forests. Martins represents a scene in Brazil, where some trees ofthis kind occm*red of such enormous dimensions, that fifteen Indians, with outstretchedarms, could only just embiace one of the bottom they were 84 feet in circum-ference, and 60 feet where the boles becamecylindrical. By counting the concentric. Fig. CCCLXXIV. rings of such parts as were accessible, he aiTived at the conclusion that they wereof the age of Homer, and 332 years old in the days of Pythagoras ; one estimate indeed,reduced their antiquity to 2052 years, while another canned it up to 4104 ; from whichhe argues that the trees cannot but date far beyond the tune of our Sa\ Indian species also jield good timber ; others, as Bauhinia racemosa and parvi-flora, have bark employed in making rope. An oil is expi-essed from the seeds of some,as Csesalpinia oleosperma ; others exude a mild gum hke the Mimoseae and some otherplants, which have at the same time an astringent bark. A brownish-coloured gum issaid by Roxburgh to be afFoided by his Bauhinia retusa ; it is also collected from , in the Dep-a Doon, and called Sem-ke-gond. Pithecolobium gummiferumyields a gum resembUng Gum Senegal,
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookidvegetablekingdom00lind
