11. Acrocomia sclerocarpa.—This palm grows all over South America. It is known as the great macaw-tree. A sweetish-tasted oil, called Mucaja oil, is extracted from the fruit and is used for making toilet soaps.
12. Adansonia digitata.—The baobab tree, a native of Africa. It has been called the tree of a thousand years, and Humboldt speaks of it as "the oldest organic monument of our planet." Adanson, who traveled in Senegal in 1794, made a calculation to show that one of these trees, 30 feet in diameter, must be 5,150 years old. The bark of the baobab furnishes a fiber which is made into ropes and also manufactured into cloth. The fiber is so strong as to give rise to a common saying in Bengal, "as secure as an elephant bound with baobab rope." The pulp of the fruit is slightly acid, and the juice expressed from it is valued as a specific in putrid and pestilential fevers. The ashes of the fruit and bark, boiled in rancid palm oil, make a fine soap.
13. Adenanthera pavonina.—A tree that furnishes red sandal wood. A dye is obtained simply by rubbing the wood against a wet stone, which is used by the Brahmins for marking their foreheads after religious bathing. The seeds are used by Indian jewelers as weights, each seed weighing uniformly four grains. They are known as Circassian beans. Pounded and mixed with borax, they form an adhesive substance. They are sometimes used as food. The plant belongs to the Leguminosæ.
14. Adhatoda vasica.—This plant is extolled for its charcoal in the manufacture of powder. The flowers, leaves, roots, and especially the fruit, are considered antispasmodic, and are administered in India in asthma and intermittent fevers.
15. Ægle marmelos.—This plant belongs to the orange family, and its fruit is known in India as Bhel fruit. It is like an orange; the thick rind of the unripe fruit possesses astringent properties, and, when ripe, has an exquisite flavor and perfume. The fruit and other parts of the plant are used for medicinal purposes, and a yellow dye is prepared from the skin of the fruits.
16. Agave americana.—This plant is commonly known as American aloe, but it is not a member of that family, as it claims kindred with the Amaryllis tribe of plants. It grows naturally in a wide range of climate, from the plains of South America to elevations of 10,000 feet. It furnishes a variety of products. The plants form impenetrable fences; the leaves furnish fibers of various qualities, from the fine thread known as pita-thread, which is used for twine, to the coarse fibers used for ropes and cables. Humboldt describes a bridge of upward of 130 feet span over the Chimbo in Quito, of which the main ropes (4 inches in diameter) were made of this fiber. It is also used for making paper. The juice, when the watery part is evaporated, forms a good soap (as detergent as castile), and will mix and form a lather with salt water as well as with fresh. The sap from the heart leaves is formed into pulque. This sap is sour, but has sufficient sugar and mucilage for fermentation. This vinous beverage has a filthy odor, but those who can overcome the aversion to this fetid smell indulge largely in the liquor. A very intoxicating brandy is made from it. Razor strops are made from the leaves; they are also used for cleaning and scouring pewter.
17. Agave rigida.—The sisal hemp, introduced into Florida many years ago, for the sake of its fiber, but its cultivation has not been prosecuted to a commercial success. Like many other of the best vegetable fibers found in leaves, it contains a gummy substance, which prevents the easy separation of the fiber from the pulp.
18. Aleurites triloba.—The candleberry tree, much cultivated in tropical countries for the sake of its nuts. The nuts or kernels, when dried and stuck on a reed, are used by the Polynesians as a substitute for candles and as an article of food; they are said to taste like walnuts. When pressed, they yield largely of pure palatable oil, as a drying oil for paint, and known as artists' oil. The cake, after the oil has been expressed, is a favorite food for cattle. The root of the tree affords a brown dye, which is used to dye cloths.
19. Algarobia glandulosa.—The mezquite tree, of Texas, occasionally reaching a height of 25 to 30 feet. It yields a very hard, durable wood, and affords a large quantity of gum resembling gum arabic, and answering every purpose of that gum.
20. Allamanda cathartica.—This plant belongs to the family of Apocynaceæ, which contains many poisonous species. It is often cultivated for the beauty of its flowers; the leaves are considered a valuable cathartic, in moderate doses, especially in the cure of painter's colic; in large doses they are violently emetic. It is a native of South America.