AQUIL ARIA, in botany, a large tree, affecting a lofty situation. Class Mean dria Monogynia; cal. perianth one-leafed, perinanent ; tube bell-shaped; limb five cleft ; clefts ovate, acute, flat, spreading ; cor. none : nectary one-leafed, pitcher shaped, of the length of the tube of the calyx, half five-cleft; clefts bifid, obtuse ; starn. filaments ten, alternating with the clefts of the ncctary ; anthers oblong, ver satile; pist. germ ovate, superior ; style, none ; stigma, simple ; per. capsule on a very short peclicle, obovate, woody, two celled, two valved, with the partition con trary, and bipartite ; seeds solitary, ob long. Them is but one species. Aqui!aria °rata; leaves alternate, ovate mucronate. This. is a large tree covered with greyish bark. Its leaves are entire, smooth, vein ed, about eight inches long, and stand on short hairy foot-stalks. The flowers terminate the branches, on many-flower ed peduncles. A native of the mountains of Malacca and Cochin-China. The wood of this tree has been long used as a per fume ; and was formerly an article of the materia medica under the name of agal lochum, lignum aloes, or aloes wood. This wood in its natural state is white and inodorous. That which possesses the peculiar aroma, for which it is valued, is supposed to be the consequence of a diseased process in the tree, causing the oleaginous paiticles to stagnate and con crete into a resin in the inner Parts of the trunk. and brauches, by which the natural appearance of the wood is altered, so as to become of a darker colour and of a fra grant smell. At length the tree dies, and,
when splitten, the resinous part is taken out. Thc perfumes which this wood af fords are highly esteemed by thd oriental nations ; and from the bark of the tree is made the common paper which the Co chin-Chinese usc for writing ; in the same manner the, Japanese make use of the bark of a species of mulberry (monis pa pyrifera). This perfume is said to be useful in vertigo and palsy : given in the form of powder, it is recommended to restrain vomiting% and alvine fluxes. To us, however, it seemsto contain little else than that camphoraccous matter common to many other vegetable substances. Prom its bitter taste it has the name of aloes, although no otherwise allied to it.
AqUILEGIA, columbine, in botany, a genus of the Polyandria Pentagyinia class of plants, having no calyx ; the corolla consists office plane, patent, equal petals, of a lanceolate, ovate figure; the nectaria are fivc in number ; they are equal, and stand alternately with the petals ; the fruit consists of five straight, parallel, cy lindric, acettminated capsules, each of which consists of a single valve. The seeds are numerous, oval, carinated, and adhere to the suture. There are five species.
ARA, in astronomy, a southern con stellation, consisting of eight stars.