P A R I L I.

Tab. 3.

Parili to the Malabarese, Pariloffi to the Brahmins, Arbore Bitanha to the Portuguese, Speen-beſſen to the Dutch; it is a tall tree with a thick trunk covered in a whitish, ash-colored bark, and endowed with many dark-purple branches spread in a circle.

The Root is yellowish, surrounded by a whitish bark, bitter, and foul-smelling.

The Leaves grow in pairs from short and reddish stems around the ends of the branches in a parallel order; they are oblong-cylindrical, pointed, and serrated at the edges, thick, dense, smooth, shiny, and greenish, with several nerves running out to the sides from a purplish middle rib that is prominent underneath. The taste is bitter and the odor is wild.

The small flowers grow in clusters at the ends of the branches, not unlike the flowers of the grape vine, consisting of four white and pointed leaves; they are odorless and bitter.

Once the flowers fall, they are succeeded by round, tripartite berries that are greenish-red, surrounded by a smooth and thick skin, and filled with a succulent, astringent, and odorless pulp. Inside this is a whitish stone containing three oblong, white, bitter seeds.

It grows in various places in the Malabar Kingdom, especially around Moutan. It is an evergreen, flowers in August, and bears fruit in the months of November and December; not rarely, it exhibits mature fruit twice a year.

Furthermore, the root and leaves of this tree correct a melancholic and atrabilious original: "atrabilariam" — referring to black bile, an excess of which was historically believed to cause melancholy. constitution of the blood and temper acidic and salty humors. From the leaves, when cooked with the leaves of the Caretti (described in Part 2) in the milky juice of the coconut, a potion is made which is useful for mitigating the pains of both external and internal hemorrhoids.

Part V.