Order Xcvi
SAPOTEЖ.
These are also shrubs, which are mostly evergreen, and natives of the warmer regions of the world. Some of the Bumélias are found in the southern states of N. America, but none of the order exists in Europe. They are chiefly valuable for their fruit, which, in many cases, contributes richly to the dessert. Mimusops eléngi, Imbricária malabarica, Sideróxylon spinósum, are all of this description; the star apples of the West Indies, the produce of several species of Chrysophyllum, and particularly of C. cainito, are esteemed delicious; and the Medlars, Lucumas, and Sapotillas of equinoctial America, all the fruit of different kinds of A'chras, are among the most valuable productions of the western world. The seeds of all the order are oily: those of A'chras sapóta are accounted diuretic and aperient. Their oil is not fluid, but so concrete as to have the appearance and consistence of butter, whence the name of butter-tree has been applied to different species both in Africa and India. The most famous of this description is the Indian mava, mahva, or madhuca, the Bássia butyrácea of botanists; the seeds of which are so oleaginous, that a single tree has been known to produce three quintals of oil; the dried flowers of the same tree are mixed by some Indians with their food, and a kind of spirit is distilled from them by others. The juice of all the sapotas is milky, but not acrid and poisonous like that of most other lactescent orders, but, on the contrary, yielding a wholesome beverage or food. Here is supposed to belong the famous Palo de Vaca, or Cowtree of South America, the trees of which are regularly milked by the inhabitants of the districts in which it grows. According to Brown, the bark of some of the A'chrases is so astringent and febrifugal as to be substituted for quinquina. 423 Bumélia W. 424 Chrysophýllum W. 425 Sideróxylon W. 426 Jacquínia W. 427 A'chras W. 433 Sersalísia R. Br. 434 Manglilla Juss. 1024 Inocárpus W. 881 Mimusops W. 1074 Bássia W.
ORDER XCVII.
SYMPLOCACEÆ.
Shrubs with serrated leaves, turning yellow in drying, and small white flowers which are sometimes fragrant. The leaves of most of them are astringent; those of Alstónia tinge the saliva greenish yellow, of Symplocos tinctória are used in America under the name of Sweet-leaf, for dying yellow. 1614 Sýmplocos L.