Descriptions

Plate 17 from volume 1 of William Roxburgh’s ‘Plants of the coast of Coromandel: selected from drawings and descriptions presented to the hon. court of directors of the East India Company’ published under the direction of botanist Sir Joseph Banks.

The book states, ‘ This is a very large tree, a native of the mountainous parts of the Rajahmundry Circar, north of Samulcotah and Peddapore. It flowers about the end of the cold, or beginning of the hot season. Seeds ripen in three or four months after.

The wood of this tree is of a dull red colour, remarkably hard and heavy; it is reckoned by the natives by far the most durable wood they know, on that account it is used for all the wood work in their temples, it is also very serviceable for various other purposes.

The bark is internally of a light red colour; a decoction dyes brown of various shades, according as the cloth has been prepared, &c. Its taste is a bitter and adstringent conjoined, and very strong, particularly the bitter, at the same time not any way nauseous or otherwise disagreeable, for the bitter, although strong, is rather more palatable than most others I have tasted. In the plate the dissected flower is magnified; the fruit of its natural size.’

Inscription

Invietenia febrifuga



This object is not on display.