VI. Book. V. Chapter. AMBOINESE HERBAL.

In the Malabar language it is called Illy, by the Brahmans Vafi, and commonly in India Mambu or Bambu original: "Mambu vel Bambu"; the source of the English word 'Bamboo'. However, it is not certain from the description whether it is the Bulu Java Java Bamboo or the Bulu swangi Ghost or Sorcerer's Bamboo; though it most closely resembles the latter because of the thorns which this Malabar reed produces around its knees and joints.

The Brahmans have indicated its medicinal virtues, which are also known here: namely, a decoction prepared from the bark of this reed is beneficial for those who have clotted blood in the body, whether from bruises or a fall; likewise, it serves to cleanse women after childbirth of the superfluous lochia The normal discharge from the uterus after childbirth. In the annotations of Dr. Arnold Sye on this same chapter, it is further added that Dr. Paul Hermann sent from Ceylon the leaves and flowers of a tree-like and thorny reed, which he called the Great Indian Tree-Reed, with a spiny bark original: "Arundo Indica arborea, maxima, cortice spinoso", known to the Sinhalese as Nuaybas—that is, the "fever tree"—because a fever arises if one drinks water into which the leaves of this reed have fallen. The Chinese report something similar regarding a certain reed growing in their own country.

According to the account of Mr. Flaccourt, this same reed grows in great abundance in Madagascar, in the Province of Galembulu, which was named after this reed; for Bulu or Walu, as he writes it in French, is what this reed is called by the Malagasy people, a name that agrees with the Malay Bulu, just as many words in those two languages correspond.

The reader should be warned that certain books are found in Europe, circulating among the common people, in which a great confusion is uncovered: for the common Indian reed or Bamboo is confused therein with the sugar-bearing reed Sugar cane, and Sachar Mamboe or Tabaxir A silica-like medicinal substance found in the joints of bamboo is confused with true sugar, the writers thinking that it was the true sugar of the ancients. A similar confusion is observed regarding the "stuffed" Indian reed called Rottangh Rattan, in which books the domestic, edible, and gum-bearing Rattans are all mixed together—which I shall demonstrate and explain more extensively in its proper place in the following seventh book.

O B S E R V A T I O N.

This is that reed which, according to the testimony of Rumphius, is called the Great Indian Tree-Reed, with a spiny bark, yielding Tabaxir in the Museum Zeylanicum page 96, and is the Tree-Reed of C.B.P. page 18 and the Hortus Cliffortianus page 25. It is the Mambu of Piso in his Mantissa Aromatica chapter 10; for the rest, see the Thesaurus Zeylanicus page 35 and Plukenet’s Almagestum page 53.

CHAPTER FIVE.

The Rough Tree-Reed. Bulu Potong.

The fifth genus of Tree-Reed, or the second species of Terin, is the Rough Tree-Reed original: "Arundarbor aspera", which is so named not because the reed itself is rough to the touch (as was said above of the Bulutuy), but because it is covered with a wrinkled, or rather a woolly, flour-like powder. It grows to a height of sixty or seventy feet, and is as thick as a leg or, at most, a knee. Its segments internodes are shorter than those of the preceding kind. The wood of the lower parts is two fingers thick and so hard that it must be cut down not with a common cleaver term: Parring; a large Malay knife or machete but with a strong axe. The upper segments, however, are longer and have thinner wood, possessing a larger cavity; for this reason, they are more suitable for water-vessels and those containers that the Tissadores term: Tissadores; from the Portuguese, referring to toddy tappers who collect sap from trees hang on the trees, commonly called Wani, for which they always choose the largest reeds.

On the outside, these reeds are sprinkled and covered with a whitish or gray rough powder, making them woolly to the touch—a feature observed in no other species of reed—and this powder can easily be scraped off. This reed sends out no lateral branches until near the very top, but from all around the joints there grow short, dense little roots, resembling small thorns and hanging downwards. Its leaves are narrower and shorter than those of the preceding kind; for the

higher the type of tree-reed, the smaller the leaves