A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton.

  • John Barton
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    63/120 (page 53)
    barb*, is from the confines of Russian and Chi- nese Tartary. The Crown Imperial is from Persia, In the same country grows an umbellifer- ous plant*j“, from whose root the stinking gum called assafaetida is procured. From India we have received the Balsam and the Kidney Bean. There also grows the Teak-tree%, or Indian Oak, which has been much employed of late years in ship-building. It so far excels the European Oak in durability, that Indian-built ships, constructed of the wood of this tree, often last forty years or more in those seas, where our ships are ruined in five years. Instead of cor- roding the iron bolts, the Teak wood is said to possess an oily quality, which serves rather to preserve them. In India is also found the Banyan-tree§, whose branches have the re- markable property of drooping to the earth, and there taking root; so that a single tree forms a curiously-arched grove. From China we appear to have originally received the Orange-tree, which is now cultivated abundant- ly in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other parts of the south of Europe. From the same country the Hydrangea was introduced by Sir Joseph Banks, in 1790. It has been cultivated by the * Ilheum paimatum. + Ferula assafoetida, % Tectona grandis. \ Ficus Indica.