Ad99999 04 052a/eng
Merkwürdige Handelspflanzen
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Plants. LXXXIV. Vol. IV. No. 50., REMARKABLE COMMERCIAL PLANTS., Fig. 1. The Caoutchou. (Hevea guianensis.), J he Caoutchou is the ramarkable tree that provides us with the elaftick gum or Indiarubber as it is generally called, which in the year 1736 was first brought to Europe by the famous traveller de la Condamine, It grows in South-America and constitutes a particular genus of plants. Its trunk grows above 60 feet high and about three feef. in circumference, Its leaves are threelobed and grow on long stalks upon the end of the branches, and the little yeilowish flowers appear in cluftres belween the stalks. The fruit consists of a large and very hard feecl-café of three cells (Fig. b.) every one of which contains two or three grey grains of feed. (Fig. c.) When the bark of the trunk is fût, a railkwhite juice cornes for'. h, which after its fluid is evaporated in the air, con ‘enfes inîoa totigh refin and yields the elaftick garn that at first vie. v appears to be brown lealher, and which, be it ever so much protraclecl or extended, imrnediately contracts again. With this gum which at first is irery fort and in consequence easily takes any form, the Americans cover little eaïthen flâtks, and after having dried the covering at the fire, they brealk the earthen mould within, and fhake the pièces out of the neck of the flafk; hence we generally receive the elaftick gum in the form of little flafks., Fig. 2. The Egyptian Mimosa. (Mimosa nilotica.), The Egyptictn Mimosa or Acacia is the tree that fupplies us with the well known Arabian Gum. ït grows wild in the arid parts of Arabia, Egvpt and Africa. The tree attains a conl'idérable height; its tender pennated leaves are formée! like those of the Acacia (Fig. a.); its flowers are y'ellow and round like a bail (Fig. b), and the long, brown, and indented hufk conîains the oval feeds or beans. The Arabian Gum issues hère and there from the bark and forms itself on the outfide cruft into pièces of the size of a Walnut, like the gum on our cherry-trees. Its colour is white, yellow, or broAvn; it diffolves very easily in Water and cornes from the Levant to Europe. It is ufed in Medicine as well as in painting and filk-manufactures, and constitutes therefore a very ufeful corn mercial article.
