are remarkable for the rose-flavour and sweetness of the fruit. In addition to these may be enumerated, the spondius dulcis; the dillenia Indica, remarkable for its beauty, and bearing a large pomaceous fruit of a pleasant acid, and equalling the lily in fragrance; the pillaw, the fruit of which is described as resembling the almond in flavour, but the nuts are contained in fibrous bags, sometimes attaining twentyfive pounds weight; the averrhoe carambola, which bears three crops of fruit in the year; and the elephant-apple, almost equally a favourite with the animal whose name it bears, and with the Hindoos. Among the trees and shrubs remarkable for their beauty, the hibiscus ficulneus is distinguished by its magnitude and the profusion of its elegant blossoms; it is also of peculiar value in a tropical climate, as hardly any insects are found under its shade. The cotton-tree rises with a thorny trunk 18 feet in circumference, to the height of 50 feet, without a branch; it then throws out numerous boughs, which are adorned, in the rainy season, with large purple blossoms: these are succeeded by the capsule containing the cotton. The nyctanthes hirsuta (or sambac) and the jasminum grandiflorum (kadtumaligu) boast the most fragrant blossoms of the Oriental Flora; the former perfuming the night, the latter giving forth its scent by day. The gloriosa superba and the Indian vine form, by their union, "bowers worthy of Paradise." The butea superba, a small tree, by the strik ing contrast of its green leaves, black flower-stalks, and large scarlet papilionaceous blossoms, attracts the admiration of the most incurious. Among the trees which diffuse their fragrance over the forests, while they adorn them with their splendid blossoms, is the pandanus odoratissima, together with various species of bignonia. The elegant atimucta (banisteria bengalensis); the tchambaga, used by the Indians for adorning their hair and perfuming their clothes; the mussænda, which displays, in fine contrast its white leaves and blood-red flowers; the ixora, which, from boughs six feet in height, exhibits its scarlet and yellow tufts of flowers, "like so many bright flames enlivening the foliage of the woods; the sindrimal, which opens its flowers at four in the afternoon, and closes them at four in the morning; and the nagatalli or pergularia tomentosa, a parasitical plant poisonous to the serpent tribe; may also be mentioned among the more curious and remarkable varieties in Indian botany. The sensitive plant is said to grow spontaneously in the Amran district of Gujerat. The fine white rose called the koondja, scents the vales of Delhi and Serinagur; and the rose-plantations of Cashmere yield the highly-valued attar. The oak, the pine, the cypress, and the poplar are found in various parts of India; but the forests consist chiefly of species unknown to Europe. One of the most valuable of these is the teak-tree,* the qualities and uses of which appear to have been little known or appreciated in this country till towards the close of the last century. It affords a hard and almost incor. ruptible timber, well fitted to supply the place of oak in ship-building. This tree, which is almost peculiar to India and Indo-China, is found along the western side of the Ghauts and other contiguous ranges of hills, particularly on the N. and N.E. of Bassein. The The tektona grandis of Linnæus, of the pentandria monogynia class. It is an evergreen, and esteemed a sacred tree. A purple dye is obtained from the tender leaves; also a medicinal syrup; and the flowers, mixed with honey, are prescribed in dropsy. Vast forests of teak-tree cover the delta of the Irrawaddy in Birmah. forests of Rajamundry, stretching from the hills on the banks of the Godavery to Potoonshah, contain also great numbers of these trees; but this is the only district on the eastern side of the Peninsula which furnishes them. In North Canara, the number of teak-trees annually felled, amounts to about 3000; and it is computed, that the district of Palicaudcherry in Malabar, might supply annually 45,000 cubical feet of this valuable timber. Excellent timber for masts is furnished by the ponna (valeria Indica, uvaria altissima), called the mast-tree or poon-tree, which grows to the height of 60 feet. Small timber for building is furnished also by the koru (or sacoo) of the northern forests, the djissoo (a species of pterocarpus), and the nagassa or iron-wood. The Indian ebony, which abounds in Ceylon, is said also to be found on the banks of the Ganges at Allahabad. In North Canara, abounds a very remarkable tree, the calophyllum inophyllum, esteemed alike for its welcome shade, its fragrant blossoms, and the useful properties of its seeds, from which is extracted the lamp-oil in general use in that part. It frequently attains 90 feet in height and 12 in circumference. The ricinus communis, or palma Christi, is cultivated in the Mysore, as well as in other parts of India, for the castor-oil, which is used for the lamp; and the seeds are given to the female buffaloes with a view to increase their milk. On the Almora hills in Kumaoon, grows a tree called phutwarrah, attaining the height of 50 feet, with a circumference of six, from the kernels of which is extracted a fat-like substance. The northern sides of the hills in the upper part of Delhi produce the common Scotch fir in great abun * See a botanical plate of this and the teak-tree in Pennant's Hindoostan, vol. i. A very brief description of some other large trees is given at p. 134 of vol. ii. dance: it is, indeed, not uncommon in the northern districts of Hindostan Proper. The mountainous districts of Nepaul and Upper Lahore contain vast forests of pine those of the Terriani district are not surpassed any where in straightness and durability. From the Sulla pine, a pure turpentine, called kota, is produced. The willow is generally found in those parts of India where the pine thrives. Some individuals of the sacred banyan, or Indian fig-tree (ficus religiosa of Linnæus), will come under description in our topographical account of the country. The two most remarkable for size in India, are found, one on an island in the Nerbuddah, within a few miles of Baroache, and the other not far from the town of Mangee in Bahar. The former is said by the natives to be 3000 years old, and is supposed to be the largest in the world, its shade being capable of sheltering 7000 persons. It has no fewer than 350 trunks (that is, branches that have taken root, and which in circumference exceed most English trees), and upwards of 3000 smaller branches, measuring nearly 2000 feet in circumference. It must once have been considerably larger, as part of its roots have been swept away, along with the bank, by the floods.* The other * A description of this surprising tree, called the Cubeer Burr, is given in Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. iii. p. 166. It is supposed to be the identical tree which Arrian describes (Hist. Ind. cap. 11) in speaking of the gymnosophists. Another celebrated tree of this kind, at Gomberoon in Persia, is described by Sir Thomas Herbert (Travels, 1665, p. 122) and by Tavernier. The latter says: "The Franks call it the Banian's tree, because, in those places where those trees grow, the idolaters always take up their quarters, and dress their victuals under them." A tree of the same kind once grew near the city of Ormus, "being the only tree that grew in the island." Dr. Fryer says, the Portuguese called it arbor de rais, because the branches bear its own roots; and the banyan-tree, for the adoration the banyans pay it; " by whom it tree has between 50 and 60 stems, and the circumfe. rence of its shadow at noon is 1116 feet. A great part of the soil of India is covered with forests of bamboo, a species of reed sometimes rising to the enormous height of 60 feet, in the short space of five months, with a circumference of 8 inches. It attains its greatest height during the first year, and during the second, acquires those properties of elasticity and hardness which render the wood so useful for a variety of purposes. A single acre of bamboos, with a good soil and proper management, produces more wood than ten acres of any other tree. At the N.W. extremity of the Northern Circars, the forests consist almost entirely of bamboos; and as, besides their thorns, they grow closer, and resist the axe better, than any other tree, the inhabitants formerly trusted entirely to their bamboo forests, binding and intertwining the reeds so as to constitute an excellent defence to their fortresses, in the place of redoubts,—at least in the rainy season: in dry weather, as they are very inflammable, they can afford little protection. The larger shoots and the trunk are employed by the Hindoos in constructing their slight habitations, and for all sorts of furniture. The best bamboos, used for is held as sacred as the oak to our old Druids, who paint it daily, and make offerings of rice, and pray to it. It has leaves like an ivy." Milton has given an admirable description of this tree in the Paradise Lost (b. ix. 1101, et seq.) -"such as at this day, to Indians known, In Malabar or Deccan spreads her arms Branching so broad and long, that, in the ground |