BROUSSONE'TIA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order Urticacece and sub-order Morece. There is but one species, B. papyrifcra. It is from the inner bark of this plant that the Japanese and the Chinese manufacture a kind of paper, and the South Sea Islanders the principal part of their clothing. It forms a small tree with soft brittle woolly branches, and large hairy rough leaves, either heart-shaped and undivided, or cut into deep irregular lobes. Some of the individuals are sterile, others fruitful. The flowers of the sterile trees grow in catkins, which fall soon after their anthers have all shed their pollen ; these catkins are composed of little greenish-purple membranous calyxes, each seated in the aril of a hairy bract and containing four elastic stamens. The flowers of the fruitful trees are collected into round green heads, and consist of a calyx like that of the sterile tree, with a small simple pistil occupying its centre, and having a long downy stigma. The heads gradually push forth little oblong greenish bodies ; these are the ripening fruits, which at maturity have a bright scarlet colour, and are of a pulpy consistence, with a sweetish insipid taste.
B. papyrifera, the Paper Mulberry, is not uncommon in the shrubberies of this country, where it proves perfectly hardy; but it is liable to be broken by winds, and soon becomes an unsightly object. Its wood, like that of many other arhorescent Urticacece, is soft, spongy, and of no value. In the tenacity of the woody tissue of its liber, or Inner bark, it also correspondn with the general character of that order. It is from that part that the preparations above alluded to have been obtained. Sir James Smith gives the following abridg ment of Krempfer's account of the preparation of paper from its bark by the Japanese :—" For this purpose the branches of the present year, after the leaves are fallen, in December, are chosen, and being cut into pieces about a yard long are boiled till the bark shrinks and is easily separable from the wood. which is then throwu away. The bark being dried is preserved till it is wanted. In order to make paper it is soaked for three or four hours in water, after which the external skin and the green internal coat are scraped off; at the same time the stronger and firmer pieces are selected, the produce of the youngest shoots being of an inferior quality. If any very old portions present themselves they are, on the other hand, rejected as too coarse. All knotty parts and everything which might impair the beauty of the paper are also removed. The chosen bark is boiled in a lixivium till its downy fibres can be separated by a touch of the finger. The pulp so produced is then agitated in water till it resembles tufts of tow. If not sufficiently boiled the paper will be coarse though strong ; if too much, it will be white indeed, but deficient in strength and solidity. Upon the various degrees and modes of washing the pulp much also depends as to the quality and beauty of the paper. Mucilage obtained from boiling rice, or from a root called Omni (Kreznpf., 474), one of the mallow tribe, is afterwards added to the pulp. The paper is finished much after the European mode, except that stalks of rushes are used instead of brass wires." BItU'CEA, a genus of pleats, named in honour of James Bruce the celebrated traveller in Abyssinia, belonging to the natural order Riaacem. It has the following characters :—Flowers moncecious; calyx 4-parted ; petals 4, hardly equal the length of the calyx ; sta mens 4, inserted round about a 4-lobed gland-like central body; the pistiliferous flowers with four abortive stamens; ovaries 4, seated on a 4-lobed receptacle, each terminated by a single, acute, reflexed stigma ; fruit a drupe, 1-seeded. The species are shrubs, with un
equally pinnated leaves, 6 pairs of opposite, entire, or serrated leaflets, without dots.
B. antidysenterica (Britten ferruginea of L'Heritier), Woodginoos, has entire leaflets covered with rusty villi on the nerves beneath ; racemes simple, spike-like. This plant is a native of Abyssinia, and is said to be a tonio and astringeut, and to act favourably in dysentery. By some mistake it was at one time supposed to be the plant which yielded the false Angostura Bark of the shops. By the substitution of the False Angostura for the true Angostura Bark [GA?.Irs:A fatal effects have been known to follow. At the time that the false Angos tura Bark was supposed to be the produce of Breda ferruginta an alkaloid was discovered in it which had been called on that account Brucia. It appears now however that there can be little doubt that the false Angostura Bark of the shops is a species of Stryehnos. On this subject Dr. Christison, in the last edition of his 'Dispensatory,' has the following remarks :—" The Angostura Bark (Galiprea Cusparia) of this country is seldom adulterated ; but on the continent a most serious fraud has been often practised by the substitution of a highly poisonous bark long erroneously conceived to be that of the Brucea ferruginea or antidpenteriea. This bark, commonly called False Angostura, presents externally a dirty grayish-yellow ground with numerous irregular spots or tubercles of a lighter gray tint, which appearances are in the larger pieces displaced in patches, or entirely, by a uniform, loose, bright, rusty-coloured efflorescence. The speckled gray pieces alone bear some resemblance to the smaller pieces of true Angostura, but are easily distinguished by their greater thickness, their far more intense bitterness, without either aroma or pungency, and also, as the Edinburgh College has indicated, by the transverse fracture becoming bright red when touched with nitric acid. Another excellent character mentioned by the college, but applicable only where rusty specks exist, is, that such spots become deep bluish-green with the same acid ; which, on the other band, scarcely affects the true bark. Nitric raid does not similarly alter the spurious bark where it is quite free of rusty efflorescence. Fatal accidents from the substitution of the spurious for the true bark were at one time not uncommon on the Continent, and iu Anstria they were so frequent that upon one occasion the government ordered the whole Angostura Bark in the empire to be destroyed. This adulteration has never been publicly noticed in Britain, and experienced wholesale and retail dealers whom I have consulted both hero and in London were unaware of its existence. A few weeks ago however Dr. Moore Neligan of Dublin informed me, that on inquiring for Angostura Bark at an extensive and respectable drug warehouse in that city he got the spurious bark, which proved to have been part of a considerable stock kept in the establishment since at least the beginning of this century, but never previously displaced. From specimens I owe to the kind ness of Dr. Neligan there can be no doubt of the accuracy of his observation, so that druggists ought to be aware of the possible risk even in this country of so serious an error." B. Sumatran has serrated leaflets villous beneath, the racemes usually compound, the petals longer than the calyx. This plant is a native of Sumatra, the Moluccas, China, and Cochin-China. The leaves are intensely bitter, and possess the same medicinal properties as the former. (Chriatison, Dispensatory; Don, Gardener's Dictionary.)