to nine; flowers yellow, not succeeded by berries in this country. The tree is a native of Virginia, rising from fifteen to twenty feet. It is sometimes confounded with the true Benzoin-tree, which is the Styrax Benzoin.

7. Sassafras-tree.

L. Sassafras. Leaves entire, three lobed, downy underneath, from three to six inches long, with small yellowish flowers, succeeded by black berries in its native country, which is Virginia. The wood affords the sassafras of the shops.

8. L. Castica. Leaves oval, wrinkled, perennial, reticulate with veins; flowers yellow and four cleft. A poisonous tree of Chili.

9. Deciduous Bay. L. Estivalis. Leaves veined, oblong, pointed, annual, wrinkled underneath; branches superaxillary. A native of Virginia, with small white flowers, succeeded by red berries.

10. Indian Bay. L. Indica. Leaves veined, lanceolate, perennial, flat; branchlets tubercled with scars; flowers racemed: trunk upright, from twenty to thirty feet high, branching regularly; flowers whitish-green, succeeded in its native soil by large oval black berries. A native of Maderia.

The leaves and berries of L. nobilis, which is a native of Italy, but cultivated in our own gardens, possess various medicinal qualities, has a sweet fragrant smell, and an aromatic astringent taste. The laurus of honorary memory, the distinguished favourite of Apollo, may be naturally supposed to have had no inconsiderable fame as a medicine; but its pharmaceutic uses are so limited in the practice of the present day, that this dignified plant is now rarely employed.

[Watson. Phil. Trans. vol. xlvii. Woodville. Pantologia.

SECTION XVIII.

Ginger.

Amomum Zinziber.-LINN.

THE ginger plant is a native of the East Indies, and is said to grow in the greatest perfection on the coast of Malabar and in Bengal; but it is now plentifully cultivated in the warmer parts of America, and in the West India islands, from whence chiefly it is imported into Europe. In 1731 it was first introduced into this country by Mr. P. Miller, and is still carefully cultivated in the dry stoves of the curious. The flowers have a sweet fragrant smell, and the

leaves and stalks, especially when bruised, also emit a faint spicy odour, but the hot acrid aromatic taste is entirely confined to the

root.

"In Jamaica ginger attains its full height, and flowers about August or September, and fades about the close of the year. When the stalks are entirely withered, the roots are in a proper state for digging: this is generally performed in the months of January and February. After being dug, they are picked, cleansed, and gradually seethed, or scalded in boiling water; they are then spread out, and exposed every day to the sun, till sufficiently dried; and after being divided into parcels of about 100 lbs. weight each, they are packed in bags for the market: this is called the Black Ginger." White ginger is the root of the same plant, but instead of the roots being scalded, by which they acquire the dark appearance of the former, each root is picked, scraped, separately washed, and afterwards dried with great care; of course more than a double expense of labour is incurred, and the market price is proportionably greater. Black ginger loses part of its essential oil by being thus immersed in boiling water; on this account it is less useful for medical and other purposes than the white, which is always good when perfectly sound and free from worm-holes: but that imported from the East Indies is stronger than any we have from Jamaica, Ginger gives out its virtues perfectly to rectified spirit, and in a great measure to water. According to Lewis, its active principles are of a remarkably fixed nature; for a watery infusion of this root being boiled down to a thick consistence, dissolved afresh in a large quantity of water, and strongly boiled down again, the heat and pungency of the root still remained, though with little or nothing of its smell. Ginger is generally considered as an aromatic less pungent and heating to the system than might be expected from its effects upon the organs of taste.

SECTION XIX.

[Woodville.

Pimento, All-Spice, or Jamaica Pepper-Tree.

Myrtus Pimenta.-LINN.

THE tree that bears this aromatic berry is a handsome myrtle, that grows above thirty feet in height, and two in circumference; the branches near the top are much divided, and thickly beset with

leaves, which by their continual verdure always give the tree a beautiful appearance; the bark is very smooth externally, and of a grey colour; the leaves vary in shape and in size, but are commonly about four inches long, veined, pointed, elliptical, and of a deep shining green colour; the flowers are produced in bunches, or panicles, and stand upon subdividing or trichotomous stalks, which usually terminate the branches; the calyx is cut into four roundish segments; the petals are also four, white, small, reflex, oval, and placed opposite to each other between the segments of the calyx; the filaments are numerous, longer than the petals, spreading, of a greenish white colour, and rise from the calyx and upper part of the germen; the antheræ are roundish, and of a pale yellow colour; the style is smooth, simple, and erect; the stigma is obtuse; the germen becomes a round succulent berry, containing two kidneyshaped flattish seeds. This tree is a native of New Spain and the West India islands. In Jamaica it grows very plentifully, and in June, July, and August puts forth its flowers, which, with every part of the tree, breathes an aromatic fragrance *.

The pimento-tree was first introduced and cultivated in this country by Mr. Philip Miller in 1739. Pimento, or the berries of this species of myrtle, are chiefly imported into England from Jamaica, and hence the name Jamaica pepper. It is also named all-spice, from its taste being supposed to resemble that of many different species mixed together.-When the berries arrive at their full growth, but before they begin to ripen †, they are picked from the branches, and exposed to the sun for several days, till they are sufficiently dried; this operation is to be conducted with great care,

* "The leaves and bark are full of aromatic particles, which make them (the planters) extremely cautious of fire in all Pimento Walks; where, if it should once catch, it runs with great fury." Browne, 1. c.

"Such of the berries as come to full maturity do, like many other seeds, lose that aromatic warmth for which they are esteemed, and acquire a taste perfectly like that of Juniper berries, which renders them a very agreeable food for the birds, the most industrious planters of these trees." Browne, 1. c. "The berries when ripe are of a dark purple colour, and full of a sweet pulp, which the birds devour greedily, and muting the seeds, afterwards propagate these trees in all parts of the woods. It is thought that the seeds passing through them, in this manner, undergo some fermentation, which fits them better for vegetating than those gathered immediately from the tree; and I believe this is the fact." Long's Jamaica, vol. iii. p. 703.

observing that on the first and second day's exposure they require to be turned very often, and always to be preserved from rain and the evening dews. After this process is completed, which is known by the colour and rattling of the seeds in the berries, they are put up in bags or hogsheads for the market. This spice, which was at first brought over for dietetic uses, has been long employed in the shops as a succedaneum to the more costly oriental aromatics'; "it is moderately warm, of an agreeable flavour, somewhat resembling that of a mixture of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmegs. Distilled with water it yields an elegant essential oil, so ponderous as to sink in the water, in taste moderately pungent, in smell and flavour approaching to oil of cloves, or rather a mixture of cloves and nutmegs. To rectified spirit it imparts, by maceration or digestion, the whole of its virtue in distillation it gives over very little to this menstruum, nearly all its active matter remaining concentrated in the inspissated extract.

SECTION XX.

Mace, or Nutmeg Tree.

Myristica Aromatica.-LINN.

THE nutmeg-tree genus has three species, some of which have varieties that by several writers have been regarded as distinct species, though erroneously. The three we allude to are the following.

1. Myristica fatua, or wild nutmeg; this grows in Tobago, and rises to the height of an apple-tree; has oblong, lanceolated, downy leaves, and hairy fruit; the nutmeg of which is aromatic, but when given inwardly is narcotic, and occasions drunkenness, delirium, and madness for a time.

2. The myristica sebifera, a tree frequent in Guiana, rising to forty, or even to sixty feet high; on wounding the trunk of which, a thick, acrid, red juice runs out. Aublet says nothing of the nutmegs being aromatic; he only observes, that a yellow fat is obtained from them, which serves many economical and medical purposes, and that the natives make candles of it.

3. The myristica aromatica, or nutmeg, attains the height of thirty feet, producing numerous branches, which rise together in stories, and covered with bark, which of the trunk is a reddish brown, but that of the young branches is of a bright green colour; the leaves are nearly elliptical, pointed, undulated, obliquely nerved,

on the upper side of a bright green, on the under whitish, and stand alternately upon footstalks; the flowers are small, and hang upon slender peduncles, proceeding from the axillæ of the leaves; they are both male and female upon separate trees.

The nutmeg has been supposed to be the comacum of Theophrastus, but there seems little foundation for this opinion; nor can it with more probability be thought to be the chrysobalanos of Galen. Our first knowledge of it was evidently derived from the Arabians; by Avicenna it was called jiausiban, or jausiband, which signifies nut of Banda.

There are two kinds of nutmegs, the one male and the other female. The female is that in common use; the male is longer and more cylindric, but it has less of the fine aromatic flavour than the other. This is very subject to be worm-eaten, and by the Dutch it is strictly prohibited from being packed with the others, because it will give occasion to their being worm-eaten too, by the insects getting from one species to the other. An almost exclusive and very lucrative trade in nutmegs from the island of Ceylon was carried on by the Dutch, but it is now transferred to the English, who have become masters of the colony *.

The seeds or kernels called nutmegs are well known, as they have been long used both for culinary and medical purposes. Distilled with water, they yield a large quantity of essential oil, resembling in flavour the spice itself; after the distillation, an insipid sebaceous matter is found swimming on the water; the decoction inspissated, gives an extract of an unctuous, very lightly bitterish taste, and with little or no astringency. Rectified spirit extracts the whole virtue of nutmegs by infusion, but elevates very little of it in distillation; hence the spirituous extract possesses the flavour of the spice in an eminent degree.

Nutmegs, when heated, yield to the press a considerable quantity of limpid yellow oil, which on cooling concretes into a sebaceous consistence. In the shops we meet with three sorts of unctuous substances, called oil of mace, though really expressed from the nutmeg. The best is brought from the East Indies in stone jars; this is of a thick consistence, of the colour of mace, and has an agreeable fragrant smell; the second sort, which is paler-coloured,

* We write this in May, 1814. The approaching peace may restore it, but it will most probably remain with the English.-EDITOR.