shed with a stalk two or
three lines long. Dr. Blume says, that the cubebs of the shops are the
fruit of _P. caninum_. This species of pepper, when fresh and good,
contains nearly 10 per cent. of essential oil.

In 1842 the quantity entered for home consumption was 67,093 lbs. The
average imports are about 40 to 50 tons annually. 3 cases were
imported into Liverpool in 1851. The price in the Liverpool market, in
January 1853, was L3 10s. to L4 10s. the cwt.

GAMBOGE.--This resinous juice, which is a most important article of
commerce, is furnished by some of the plants of Gambogia, natives
principally of South America. It is a powerful irritant, and is
employed medicinally as a drastic and hydragogue cathartic. From its
bright yellow color it is also used as a pigment.

Gamboge fetches in the London market from L5 to L11 per cwt.

Some of the species of _Stalagmites_ (Murray), natives of Ceylon and
the East, yield a similar yellow viscid juice, hardly distinguishable
from gamboge, and used for the same purpose by painters. They are a
genus of fine ornamental trees, thriving well in soils partaking of a
mixture of loam and peat.

According to Koenig, the juice is collected by breaking off the leaves
or young branches. From the fracture the gamboge exudes in drops, and
is therefore called _gum gutta_. It is received on leaves, coco-nut
shells, earthen pots, or in bamboos; it gradually hardens by age, and
is then wrapped up in leaves prior to sale.

The common gamboge of Ceylon is produced by a plant which Dr. Graham
was led to view as a species of a new genus under the name of
_Hebradendron Gambogoides_. A very different species, the _Garcinia
Gambogia_, of Roxburgh, once supposed to produce gamboge, and indeed
actually confounded by Linnaeus with the true gamboge tree of Ceylon,
he has proved not to produce gamboge at all.

This substance is also obtained from several other plants, as the
_Mangostana Gambogia_ (Gaertner), _Hypericwm bacciferum_ and
_Cayanense_, natives of the East Indies, Siam and Ceylon, whence it is
imported in small cakes and rolls or cylindrical twisted masses. Its
composition is as follows: number 1 being an analysis by Professor
Christison of a commercial specimen from Ceylon; number 2 of a fine
sample of common ditto:--

1 2
Resin, or fatty acid 78.84 74.8
Coloring matter 4.03 3.5
Gum 12.59 16.5
Residue