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Show 624 TAMARIND TREE. rinds are prepared for exportation at Jamaica in the following manner: ‘The fruit or pods are gathered (in June, July, and August) when fall ripe, which is known bytheir fragility or easy breaking on small pressure between the finger and thumb. The fruit, taken out of the pod, and cleared from the shelly fragments, is placed in layers in a cask, andboiling syrup, just before it begins to granulate, is poured in, till the caskis filled: the syrup pervades every part quite down to the bottom, and when cool the cask is headed forsale.” He observes, that the EN better mode of preserving this fruit is with sugar, well clarified SPRUINNS A S A \ with eggs, till a transparent syrup is formed, which gives the fruit a much pleasant@r flavour: but as a principal medicinal purpose of the pulp depends upon its acidity, which is thus counteracted by the admixture of sugar, it would therefore be of moreutility if always imported here in the pods. ‘The fruit producedin the Kast Indies is more esteemed than that of the West, and easily to be distinguished by the greater length of the pods, and the pulp being dryer andof a darker colour. MARSHMALLOW. ALTHEA OFFICINALIS. MEDICAL VIRTUES. This fruit very much resembles the nature of prunes, but is more acid, and enters as an useful ingredient into the lenitive electuary. It is found of the highest use in the sore throat, as a powerful cleanser, and put into boiling water, until mo- Class XVI. Monadelphia. Order IX. Polyandria:. Essent, Gen. Car. Calyx double, the external one nine-cleft: Arillé humerous, many-seeded, heat of fever, and in the lowest stage of putrid fever. Spec, Caar, derately cold, is a delightful drink to persons parched under the Leaves simple, tomentose. Sa DESCRIPTION. Tits plant rises three or four feet high. The leaves are heartshaped, pointed, irregularly serrated, covered with soft down, and standing upon long footstalks. The flowers are large, consisting of five petals, inversely heart-shaped, of a pale purple. The interior calyx is composedof five pointed segments. HISTORY. It is a native of England, and grows common near the sea shore, or about salt marshes ; and flowers in August. MEDICAL VIRTUES. The dry roots of this plant, boiled in water, give out half their weight of a gummy matterlike starch, and on evaporating the aqueous fluid, form a flavourless yellowish mucilage. 28 ~ The |