earance. The flowers, in which the
tree was profuse, demand our deep admiration and attention: each group
of them rose perpendicularly from the end of the young shoot, and was in
length 14 in., like a gigantic hyacinth, and quite as beautiful, spiked
to a point, exhibiting a cone or pyramid of flowers, widely separate on
all sides, and all expanded together, principally white, finely tinted
with various colours, as red, pink, yellow, and buff, the stamina
forming a most elegant fringe amid the modest tints of the large and
copious petals. These feathery blossoms, lovely in colours and stately
in shape, stood upright on every branch all over the tree, like flowery
minarets on innumerable verdant turrets. We had thus the opportunity of
ascertaining that it belonged to that class of Linnaeus consisting
entirely of rare plants the Heptandria, and the order Monogynia; the
natural order Trihilatae; and the _A'_cera of Jussieu.

The natives informed us that the fruit ripens early in autumn, and
consists of bunches of apples, thinly beset with sharp thorns, each when
broken producing one or two large kernels, about 2 in. in circumference,
of the finest bright mahogany colour without, and white within; that the
tree is deciduous, and just before its fall changes to the finest tints
of red, yellow, orange, and brown. When divested of its luxuriant
foliage, the buds of the next year appear like little spears, which
through the winter are covered with a fine glutinous gum, evidently
designed to protect the embryo shoots within, as an hybernaculum, from
the severe frosts of the climate, and which glisten in the cold sunshine
like diamonds. It has the strange property of performing the whole of
its vigorous shoot, nearly a yard long, in the short space of three
weeks, employing all the rest of the year in converting it into wood,
adding to its strength, and varying its beauty. The wood when sawn is
of the finest snowy whiteness. The tree is easily raised; indifferent
as to soil, climate, or situation; removed with safety, of quick growth,
thrives to a vast age and size; subject to no blight or disease; in the
earliest spring bursting its immense buds into that vigour, exuberance,
and beauty, which we have here feebly attempted to describe. The natives
said it was originally brought from the east of Asia, but grows freely
in any climate, and in their tongue its name is designated by a
combination of three words, signifying separately,