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ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY.
in the southern portions of India, hut a few are found on the Himalayas, and two species of Polyodontia in Ceylon, generally they are confined to the colder regions of the northern hemisphere. The peach has been introduced into India and in some places thrives well, producing fine fruit, but this is the only one of the tribe I have heard of yielding good fruit in this country. I have seen plum trees but have not seen the fruit. I do not recollect of ever having met with a cherry tree or a cherry in India.
Properties and Uses. To dwell on these here would be out of place since none of the species are to be had in this country, but it may be mentioned again that bo*h the leaves and kernels of some of the species produce Prussic acid in such abundance as to become poisonous to cattle that brouse on them, arid it may equally be mentioned that Prussic acid is the most immediately destructive of lif« of all vegetable poisons ; a few seconds often sufficing for its total extinction when the acid has been sufficiently concentrated.
Notwithstanding this intense energy of action it his yet been beneficially employed in medicine for the treatment of some diseases, generally, of an obstinate or nearly incurable character. More recently it has been tried in a case of Hydrophobia in very large doses an 1 seemed to have arrested the progress of the animal poison, as the patient completely recovered the powers of deglutition, but finally died of Typhoid symptoms, apparently induced through the exhaustion caused by the combined action of two such powerful poisons oh the system. First by the deleterious effects of the animal one, which had never been overcome, until met by this more energetic vegetable one, and then by the enormous doses of the Prussic acid which were so powerful as at one time nearly to destroy life within a few minutes after administration. The case though it finally terminated fat illy, yet holds out a hope of cure in that hit herto incurable malady Hydrophobia, since, it goes far to prove the efficiency of the one poison to overcome or counteract the deleterious effects of the other on the living animal fibre. To Prussic acid Noyeau owes its peculiar flavour, and that fact should make people cautious not to use much of a Liqueur, depending for its excellence on so active and dangerous an ingredient, so active indeed, that merely smelling the concentrated acid is enough to endanger or even to destroy life.
Sub-order Sanguisorbeae. The Burnet tribe.
"Flowers often unisexual. Calyx with a thickened tube and a 3-4 or 5 lobed limb, its tube lined with a disk. Petals none. Semens definite, sometimes fewer than the segments of the calyx, with which they are then alternate, arising from the orifice of the calyx ; anthers 2-celled, innate, bursting longitudinally, occasionally, l-celled, bursting transversely. Ovary solitary, simple, with a style proceeding from the apex or the base; ovule solitary, always attached to that part of the ovary which is next the base of the style. Stigma compound or simple. Nut solitary, enclosed in the often indurated tube of the calyx. Seed solitary, sus- pended or ascending: embryo without albumen ; radicle superior or inferior. Cotyledons large, plano-convex. — Herbaceous plants or undershrubs, occasionally spiny. Leaves simple and lobed, or compound, alternate, with stipules. Flowers small, often capitate."
This sub-order is one of very inferior note and may even be doubted whether it ought to remain here. Alchemilla vulgaris or lady's mantle is a native of the higher hills of India and Ceylon, but so far as I am aware none of the other genera are found in southern India This is the only tribe of Rosaceae found at the Cape of Goqd Hope. They are very common in Europe in open heaths and exposed situations. The celebrated Frederick Hoffman states that " a decoction of Alchemilla vulgaris has the effect of restoring the faded beauty of ladies to its earliest freshness."
I copy this piece of information as I am enabled to add that the plant in question is a native of the Neilgherries, and doubtless may be had there in sufficient quantity to admit of the experiment being tried, if we can only find fit subjects among our fair ones on whom to make the experiment.
Remarks on Genera and Species. In an order to which, so far as the Indian flora is concerned, so few of both belong, much space need not be devoted to this head. In the Penin-
