200. Excœcaria sebifera.—This Euphorbiaceous plant is the tallow tree of China. The fruits, are about half an inch in diameter, and each contains three seeds, thickly coated with a fatty substance which yields the tallow. This is obtained by first steaming the seeds, then bruising them to loosen the fat without breaking the seeds, which are removed by sifting. The fat is then made into flat circular cakes and pressed, when the pure tallow exudes in a liquid state and soon hardens into a white, brittle mass. Candles made from this get soft in hot weather, which is prevented by coating them with insect wax. A liquid oil is obtained from the seeds by pressing. The tree yields a hard wood, used by the Chinese for printing blocks, and its leaves are used in dyeing black.
201. Exogonium purga.—This plant furnishes the true jalap-tubers of commerce. They owe their well-known purgative properties to their resinous ingredients. Various species of Ipomœa furnish a spurious kind of this drug, which is often put in the market as the genuine article.
202. Exostemma caribæum.—This West Indian plant has become naturalized in southern Florida. It belongs to the cinchona family and is known as Jamaica bark. It is also known as Quinquina Caraibe. The bark is reputed to be a good febrifuge, and also to be employed as an emetic. It is supposed to contain some peculiar principle, as the fracture displays an abundance of small crystals. The capsules, before they are ripe, are very bitter, and their juice causes a burning itching on the lips.
203. Feronia elephantum.—The wood apple or elephant apple tree of India, belonging to the family Aurantiaceæ. It forms a large tree in Ceylon, and yields a hard, heavy wood, of great strength. It yields a gum, which is mixed with other gums and sold under the name of East Indian gum arabic. The fruit is about the size of an orange, and contains a pulpy flesh, which is edible, and a jelly is made from it, which is used in cases of dysentery. The leaves have an odor like that of anise, and the native India doctors employ them as a stomachic and carminative.
204. Fevillea cordifolia.—The sequa or cacoon antidote of Jamaica. It belongs to the cucumber family, and climbs to a great height up the trunks of trees. The seeds are employed as a remedy in a variety of diseases, and are considered an antidote against the effects of poison; they also contain a quantity of semisolid fatty oil, which is liberated by pressing and boiling them in water.
205. Ficus elastica.—This plant is known as the india-rubber tree. It is a native of the East Indies, and is the chief source of caoutchouc from that quarter of the globe, although other species of Ficus yield this gum, as well as several plants of other genera. It is a plant of rapid growth, and from the larger branches roots descend to the earth as in the case of the banyan tree.
206. Ficus indica.—The famous banyan tree of history. Specimens of this Indian fig are mentioned as being of immense size. One in Bengal spreads over a diameter of 370 feet. Another covered an area of 1,700 square yards. It is one of the sacred trees of the Hindoos. It was known to the ancients. Strabo describes it, and it is mentioned by Pliny. Milton also alludes to it as follows:
Branching so broad along, that in the ground
The bending twigs take root; and daughters grow
About the mother tree; a pillared shade,
High overarched, with echoing walks between.
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
Shelters in cool; and tends his pasturing herds
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade.
207. Ficus religiosa.—The pippul tree of the Hindoos, which they hold in such veneration that, if a person cuts or lops off any of the branches, he is looked upon with as great abhorrence as if he had broken the leg of one of their equally sacred cows. The seeds are employed by Indian doctors in medicine.
208. Flacourtia sepiaria.—A bushy shrub, used in India for hedges. Its fruit has a pleasant, subacid flavor when perfectly ripe, but the unripe fruit is extremely astringent. The Indian doctors use a liniment made of the bark in cases of gout, and an infusion of it as a cure for snake bites.