Part 6

264. LIMONIA ACIDISSIMA.--An East India shrub which produces round fruits about the size of damson plums, of a yellowish color, with reddish or purplish tints. They are extremely acid, and the pulp is employed in Java as a substitute for soap.

265. LIVISTONA AUSTRALIS.--This is one of the few palms found in Australia. The unexpanded leaves, prepared by being scalded and dried in the shade, are used for making hats, while the still younger and more tender leaves are eaten like cabbage.

266. LUCUMA MAMMOSUM.--This sapotaceous plant is cultivated for its fruit, which is called marmalade, on account of its containing a thick agreeably flavored pulp, bearing some resemblance in appearance and taste to quince marmalade. A native of South America.

267. MABA GEMINATA.--The ebony wood of Queensland. The heart wood is black, and the outside wood of a bright red color. It is close-grained, hard, heavy, elastic and tough, and takes a high polish.

268. MACADAMIA TERNIFOLIA.--An Australian tree which produces an edible nut called the Queensland nut. This fruit is about the size of a walnut, and within a thick pericarp, a smooth brown-colored nut, inclosing a kernel of a rich and agreeable flavor, resembling in some degree that of a filbert.

269. MACHAERIUM FIRMUM.--A South American tree which furnishes a portion of the rosewood of commerce. Various species of the genus, under the common Brazilian name of Jaccaranda, are said to yield this wood, but there is some uncertainty about the origin of the various commercial rosewoods.

270. MACLURA TINCTORIA.--The fustic tree. Large quantities of the bright yellow wood of this tree are exported from South America for the use of dyers, who obtain from it shades of yellow, brown, olive, and green. A concentrated decoction of the wood deposits, on cooling, a yellow crystalline matter called Morine. This tree is sometimes called old fustic, in order to distinguish it from another commercial dye called young fustic, which is obtained in Europe from a species of Rhus.

271. MACROPIPER METHYSTICUM.--A plant of the pepper family, which furnishes the root called Ava by the Polynesians. It has narcotic properties, and is employed medicinally, but is chiefly remarkable for the value attached to it as a narcotic and stimulant beverage, of which the natives partake before they commence any important business or religious rites. It is used by chewing the root and extracting the juice, and has a calming rather than an intoxicating effect. It is a filthy preparation, and only partaken of by the lower classes of Feejeeans.

272. MACROZAMIA DENISONII.--An Australian cycad, the seeds of which contain a large amount of farina, or starchy matter, which formerly supplied a considerable amount of food for the natives of that country. The fresh seeds are very acrid, but when steeped in water and roasted they become palatable and nutritious.

273. MALPIGHIA GLABRA.--A low-growing tree of the West Indies, which produces an edible fruit called the Barbadoes cherry.

274. MAMMEA AMERICANA.--The fruit of this tree, under the name of mammee apple, is very much esteemed in tropical countries. It often attains a size of 6 or 8 inches in diameter and is of a yellow color. The outer rind and the pulp which immediately surrounds the seeds are very bitter, but the intermediate is sweet and aromatic. The seeds are used as anthelmintics, an aromatic liquor is distilled from the flowers, and the acrid, resinous gum distilled from the bark is used to destroy insects.

275. MANETTIA CORDIFOLIA.--This climbing-plant is a native of South America, and belongs to the family of _Cinchonaceae_. The rind of the root has emetic properties, and is used in Brazil for dropsy and other diseases. It is also exported under the name of Ipecacuan, chiefly from Buenos Ayres.

276. MANGIFERA INDICA.--The mango, in some of its varieties esteemed as the most delicious of tropical fruits, while many varieties produce fruit whose texture resembles cotton and tastes of turpentine. The unripe fruit is pickled. The pulp contains gallic and citric acid. The seeds possess anthelmintic properties. A soft gum resin exudes from the wounded bark, which is used medicinally.

277. MANICARIA SACCIFERA.--Bussu palm of South America. Its large leaves are used for thatching roofs, for which purpose they are well fitted and very durable. The fibrous spathe furnishes a material of much value to the natives. This fibrous matter when taken off entire is at once converted into capital bags, in which the Indian keeps the red paint for his toilet, or the silk cotton for his arrows, or he stretches out the larger ones to make himself a cap of nature's own weaving, without seam or joint.

278. MANIHOT UTILISSIMA.--This euphorbiaceous plant yields cassava or mandiocca meal. It is extensively cultivated in tropical climates and supplies a great amount of food. The root is the part used, and in its natural condition is a most virulent poison, but by grating the roots to a pulp the poison is expelled by pressure, and altogether dissipated by cooking. The expressed juice, when allowed to settle, deposits the starch known as tapioca.

279. MARANTA ARUNDINACEA.--The arrowroot plant, cultivated for its starch. The tubers being reduced to pulp with water, the fecula subsides, and is washed and dried for commerce. It is a very pure kind of starch, and very nutritious. The term arrowroot is said to be derived from the fact that the natives of the West Indies use the roots of the plant as an application to wounds made by poison arrows.

280. MAURITIA FLEXUOSA.--The Moriche, or Ita palm, very abundant on the banks of the Amazon, Rio Negro, and Orinoco Rivers. In the delta of the latter it occupies swampy tracts of ground, which are at times completely inundated, and present the appearance of forests rising out of the water. These swamps are frequented by a tribe of Indians called Guaranes, who subsist almost entirely upon the produce of this palm, and during the period of the inundations suspend their dwellings from the tops of its tall stems. The outer skin of the young leaves is made into string and cord for the manufacture of hammocks. The fermented sap yields palm wine, and another beverage is prepared from the young fruits, while the soft inner bark of the stem yields a farinaceous substance like sago.

281. MAXIMILIANA REGIA.--An Amazonian palm called Inaja. The spathes are so hard that, when filled with water, they will stand the fire, and are sometimes used by the Indians as cooking utensils. The Indians who prepare the kind of rubber called bottle rubber, make use of the hard stones of the fruit as fuel for smoking and drying the successive layers of milky juice as it is applied to the mold upon which the bottles are formed. The outer husk, also, yields a kind of saline flour used for seasoning their food.

282. MELALEUCA MINOR.--A native of Australia and the islands of the Indian Ocean. The leaves, being fermented, are distilled, and yield an oil known as cajuput or cajeput oil, which is green, and has a strong aromatic odor. It is valuable as an antispasmodic and stimulant, and at one time had a great reputation as a cure for cholera. In China the leaves are used as a tonic in the form of decoction.

283. MELICOCCA BIJUGA.--This sapindaceous tree is plentiful in tropical America and the West Indies, and is known as the Genip tree. It produces numerous green egg-shaped fruits, an inch in length, possessing an agreeable vinous and somewhat aromatic flavor, called honey berries or bullace plums. The wood of the tree is hard and heavy.

284. MELOCACTUS COMMUNIS.--Commonly called the Turk's Cap cactus, from the flowering portion on the top of the plant being of a cylindrical form and red color, like a fez cap. Notwithstanding that they grow in the most dry sterile places, they contain a considerable quantity of moisture, which is well known to mules, who resort to them when very thirsty, first removing the prickles with their feet.

285. MESEMBRYANTHEMUM CRYSTALLINUM.--The ice plant, so called in consequence of every part of the plant being covered with small watery pustules, which glisten in the sun like fragments of ice. Large quantities of this plant are collected in the Canaries and burned, the ashes being sent to Spain for the use of glass makers. _M. edule_ is called the Hottentot's fig, its fruit being about the size of a small fig, and having a pleasant, acid taste when ripe. _M. tortuosum_ possesses narcotic properties, and is chewed by the Hottentots to induce intoxication. The fruits possess hygrometric properties, the dried, shriveled, capsules swelling out and opening so as to allow of the escape of the seeds when moistened by rain, which at the same time fits the soil for their germination.

286. MIKANIA GUACO.--A composite plant which has gained some notoriety as the supposed Cundurango, the cancer-curing bark. It has long been supposed to supply a powerful antidote for the bite of venomous serpents.

287. MIMUSOPS BALATA.--The Bully tree. This sapotaceous plant attains a great size in Guiana and affords a dense, close-grained, valuable timber. Its small fruits, about the size of coffee berries, are delicious when ripe. The flowers also yield a perfume when distilled in water, and oil is expressed from the seeds.

288. MIMUSOPS ELENGI.--A native of Ceylon, where its hard, heavy, durable timber is used for building purposes. The seed also affords a great amount of oil.

289. MONODORA GRANDIFLORA.--An African plant belonging to the Anonaceae. It produces large fruit, which contains a large quantity of seeds about the size of the Scarlet-Runner bean. They are aromatic and impart to the fruit the odor and flavor of nutmeg; hence they are also known as calabash nutmegs.

290. MONSTERA DELICIOSA.--This is a native of southern Mexico and yields a delicious fruit with luscious pineapple flavor. The outer skin of the fruit, if eaten, causes a stinging sensation in the mouth. This is easily removed when the fruit is ripe. The leaves are singularly perforated with holes at irregular intervals, from natural causes not sufficiently explained. In Trinidad the plant is called the Ceriman.

291. MORINGA PTERYGOSPERMA.--A native of the East Indies, where it bears the name of horse-radish tree. The seeds are called ben nuts and supply a fluid oil, highly prized by watchmakers, called oil of ben. The root is pungent and stimulant and tastes like horse-radish.

292. MORONOBEA COCCINEA.--The hog gum tree, which attains the height of 100 feet. A fluid juice exudes from incisions in the trunk and hardens into a yellow resin. It is said the hogs in Jamaica when wounded rub the injured part against the tree so as to cover it with the gum, which possesses vulnerary properties; hence its name. The resin has been employed as a substitute for copaiba balsam, and plasters are made of it.

293. MUCUNA PRURIENS.--A tall climbing plant of the West Indies and other warm climates. It is called the cowage, or cow-itch, on account of the seed pods being covered with short brittle hairs, the points of which are finely serrated, causing an unbearable itching when applied to the skin, which is relieved by rubbing the part with oil. It is employed as a vermifuge. In East Africa it is called Kitedzi. The sea beans found on the coast of Florida are the seeds of _Mucuna altissima_. In Cuba these are called bulls' eyes.

294. MURRAYA EXOTICA.--A Chinese plant of the orange family. The fruit is succulent, and the white flowers are very fragrant. They are used in perfumery.

295. MUSA CAVENDISHII.--This is a valuable dwarf species of the banana from southern China. It bears a large truss of fine fruit, and is cultivated to some extent in Florida, where it endures more cold than the West India species and fruits more abundantly.

296. MUSA ENSETE.--This Abyssinian species forms large foliage of striking beauty. The food is dry and uneatable; but the base of the flower stalk is eaten by the natives.

297. MUSA SAPIENTUM.--The banana plant. This has been cultivated and used as food in tropical countries from very remote times, and furnishes enormous quantities of nutritious food, and serves as a staple support to a large number of the human race. The expressed juice is in some countries made into a fermented liquor and the young shoots eaten as a vegetable.

298. MUSA TEXTILIS.--This furnishes the fiber known as manilla hemp, and is cultivated in the Philippine Islands for this product. The finer kinds of the fiber are woven into beautiful shawls and the coarser manufactured into cordage for ships. The fiber is obtained from the leaf-stalks.

299. MUSSAENDA FRONDOSA.--This cinchonaceous plant is a native of Ceylon. The bark and leaves are esteemed as tonic and febrifuges in the Mauritius, where they are known as wild cinchona. The leaves and flowers are also used as expectorants, and the juice of the fruit and leaves is used as an eyewash.

300. MYRISTICA MOSCHATA.--The nutmeg tree. The seed of this plant is the nutmeg of commerce, and mace is the seed cover of the same. When the nuts are gathered they are dried and the outer shell of the seed removed. The mace is also dried in the sun and assumes a golden yellow color. The most esteemed nutmegs come from Penang. At one time the nutmeg culture was monopolized by the Dutch, who were in the habit of burning them when the crop was too abundant, in order to keep up high prices.

301. MYROSPERMUM PERUIFERUM.--This plant yields the drug known as balsam of Peru, which is procured by making incisions in the bark, into which cotton rags are thrust; a fire is then made round the tree to liquefy the balsam. The balsam is collected by boiling the saturated rags in water. It is a thick, treacly looking liquid, with fragrant aromatic smell and taste, and is not used so much in medicine as it formerly was.

302. MYROSPERMUM TOLUIFERUM.--A South American tree, also called Myroxylon, which yields the resinous drug called balsam of Tolu. This substance is fragrant, having a warm, sweetish taste, and burns with an agreeable odor. It is used in perfumery and in the manufacture of pastilles, also for flavoring confectionery, as in Tolu lozenges.

303. MYRTUS COMMUNIS--The common myrtle. This plant is supposed to be a native of western Asia, but now grows abundantly in Italy, Spain, and the south of France. Among the ancients the myrtle was held sacred to Venus and was a plant of considerable importance, wreaths of it being worn by the victors of the Olympic games and other honored personages. Various parts of the plant were used in medicine, in cookery, and by the Tuscans in the preparation of myrtle wine, called _myrtidanum_. It is still used in perfumery, and a highly perfumed distillation is made from the flowers. The fruits are very aromatic and sweet, and are eaten fresh or dried and used as a condiment.

304. NANDINA DOMESTICA.--A shrub belonging to the family of berberries. It is a native of China and Japan, where it is extensively cultivated for its fruits. It is there known as Nandin.

305. NAUCLEA GAMBIR.--A native of the Malayan Islands, which yields the Gambir, or Terra Japonica of commerce. This is prepared by boiling the leaves in water until the decoction thickens, when it is poured into molds, where it remains until it acquires the consistency of clay; it is then cut into cubes and thoroughly dried. It is used as a masticatory in combination with the areca nut and betel leaf, and also for tanning purposes.

306. NECTANDRA LEUCANTHA.--The greenheart, or bibiru tree of British Guiana, furnishing bibiru bark, which is used medicinally as a tonic and febrifuge, its properties being due to the presence of an uncrystallizable alkaloid, also found in the seeds. The seeds are also remarkable for containing upwards of 50 per cent of starch, which is made into a kind of bread by the natives. The timber of this tree is extensively employed in shipbuilding, its great strength and durability rendering it peculiarly well suited for this purpose.

307. NEPENTHES DISTILLATORIA.--This pitcher plant is a native of Ceylon. The pitchers are partly filled with water before they open; hence it was supposed to be produced by some distilling process. In Ceylon the old, tough, flexible stems are used as willows.

308. NEPHELIUM LITCHI.--This sapindaceous tree produces one of the valued indigenous fruits of China. There are several varieties; the fruit is round, about an inch and a half in diameter, with a reddish-colored, thin, brittle shell. When fresh they are filled with a sweet, white, transparent, jelly-like pulp. The Chinese are very fond of these fruits and consume large quantities of them, both in the fresh state and when dried and preserved.

309. NERIUM OLEANDER.--This is a well-known plant, often seen in cultivation, and seemingly a favorite with many. It belongs to a poisonous family and is a dangerous poison. A decoction of its leaves forms a wash, employed in the south of Europe to destroy vermin; and its powdered wood and bark constitute the basis of an efficacious rat-poison. Children have died from eating the flowers. A party of soldiers in Spain, having meat to roast in camp, procured spits and skewers of the tree, which there attains a large size. The wood having been stripped of its bark, and brought in contact with the meat, was productive of fatal consequences, for seven men died out of the twelve who partook of the meat and the other five were for some time dangerously ill.

310. NOTELAEA LIGUSTRINA.--The Tasmanian iron wood tree. It is of medium growth and furnishes wood that is extremely hard and dense, and used for making sheaves for ships' blocks, and for other articles that require to be of great strength. The plant belongs to the olive family.

311. OCHROMA LAGOPUS.--A tree that grows about 40 feet high, along the seashores in the West Indies and Central America, and known as the cork wood. The wood is soft, spongy, and exceedingly light, and is used as a substitute for cork, both in stopping bottles and as floats for fishing nets. It is also known as Balsa.

312. [OE]NOCARPUS BATAVA.--A South American palm, which yields a colorless, sweet-tasted oil, used in Para for adulterating olive oil, being nearly as good for this purpose as peanut oil, so largely used in Europe. A palatable but slightly aperient beverage is prepared by triturating the fruits in water, and adding sugar and mandiocca flour.

313. OLEA EUROPAEA.--The European olive, which is popularly supposed to furnish _all_ the olive oil of commerce. It is a plant of slow growth and of as slow decay. It is considered probable that trees at present existing in the Vale of Gethsemane are those which existed at the commencement of the Christian era. The oil is derived from the flesh of the fruit, and is pressed out of the bruised pulp; inferior kinds are from second and third pressings. The best salad oil is from Leghorn, and is sent in flasks surrounded by rush-work. Gallipoli oil is transported in casks, and Lucca in jars. The pickling olives are the unripe fruits deprived of a portion of their bitterness by soaking in water in which lime and wood ashes are sometimes added, and then bottled in salt and water with aromatics.

314. OPHIOCARYON PARADOXUM.--The snake nut tree of Guiana, so called on account of the curious form of the embryo of the seed, which is spirally twisted, so as to closely resemble a coiled-up blacksnake. The fruits are as large as those of the black walnut, and although they are not known to possess any medical properties, their singular snake-like form has induced the Indians to employ them as an antidote to the poison of venomous snakes. The plant belongs to the order of _Sapindaceae_.

315. OPHIORRHIZA MUNGOS.--A plant belonging to the cinchona family, the roots of which are reputed to cure snake bites. They are intensely bitter, and from this circumstance they are called earth-galls by the Malays.

316. OPHIOXYLON SERPENTINUM.--A native of the East Indies, where the roots are used in medicine as a febrifuge and alexipharmic.

317. OPUNTIA COCHINELLIFERA.--A native of Mexico, where it is largely cultivated in what are called the Nopal plantations for the breeding of the cochineal insect. This plant and others are also grown for a similar purpose in the Canary Islands and Madeira. Some of these plantations contain fifty thousand plants. Cochineal forms the finest carmine scarlet dye, and at least there are 2,000 tons of it produced yearly, in value worth $2,000 per ton.

318. OPUNTIA TUNA.--This plant is a native of Mexico and South America generally. It reaches a height of 15 to 20 feet and bears reddish-colored flowers, followed by pear-shaped fleshy fruits 2 or 3 inches long, and of a rich carmine color when ripe. It is cultivated for rearing the cochineal insect. The fruits are sweet and juicy; sugar has been made from them. The juice is used as a water-color and for coloring confectionery.

319. OREODAPHNE CALIFORNICA.--The mountain laurel, or spice bush, of California. When bruised it emits a strong, spicy odor, and the Spanish Americans use the leaves as a condiment.

320. OREODOXA OLERACEA.--The West Indian cabbage palm, which sometimes attains the height of 170 feet, with a straight cylindrical trunk. The semicylindrical portions of the leaf-stalk are formed into cradles for children, or made into splints for fractures. Their inside skin, peeled off while green, and dried, looks like vellum, and can be written upon. The heart of young leaves, or cabbage, is boiled as a vegetable or pickled, and the pith affords sago. Oil is obtained from the fruit.

321. ORMOSIA DASYCARPA.--This is the West Indian bead tree, or necklace tree, the seeds of which are roundish, beautifully polished, and of a bright scarlet color, with a black spot at one end resembling beads, for which they are substitutes, being made into necklaces, bracelets, or mounted in silver for studs and buttons. It is a leguminous plant.