See Payne K. Kilbourne, _Sketches and Chronicles of the Town of
Litchfield, Connecticut_ (Hartford, Conn., 1859); George C. Boswell,
_The Litchfield Book of Days_ (Litchfield, 1900); and for an account
of the Litchfield Female Seminary, Emily N. Vanderpoel, _Chronicles of
a Pioneer School_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1903).
LITCHFIELD, a city of Montgomery county, Illinois, U.S.A., about 50 m.
N. E. of St Louis, Missouri. Pop. (1900) 5918; (1910) 5971. Its
principal importance is as a railway and manufacturing centre; it is
served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago & Alton, the
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the Illinois Central, the
Wabash, and the Litchfield & Madison railways, and by electric lines
connecting with St Louis and the neighbouring towns. In the vicinity are
deposits of bituminous coal, fire-clay and moulding sand. There are
various manufactures in the city. Litchfield was incorporated as a town
in 1856, and was first chartered as a city in 1859.
LITCHI, or LEE-CHEE, the fruit of _Nephelium Litchi_, a small tree,
native of southern China and one of the most important indigenous
fruits. It is also cultivated in India. The tree bears large compound
leaves with two to four pairs of leathery lanceolate pointed leaflets
about 3 in. long, and panicles of small flowers without petals. The
fruits are commonly roundish, about 1½ in. in diameter, with a thin,
brittle, red shell which bears rough protuberances. In the fresh state
they are filled with a sweet white pulp which envelops a large brown
seed, but in the dried condition the pulp forms a blackish fleshy
substance. The pulp is of the nature of an aril, that is, an additional
seed-coat.
_Nephelium Longana_, the longan tree, also a native of southern China,
is cultivated in that country, in the Malay Peninsula, India and
Ceylon for its fruit, which is smaller than that of the litchi, being
half an inch to an inch in diameter with a nearly smooth
yellowish-brown brittle skin, and containing a pulpy aril resembling
that of the litchi in flavour. Another species, _N. lappaceum_, a tall
tree native of the Malay Peninsula, where it is known under the names
Rambutan or Rambosteen, is also cultivated for its pleasantly acid
pulpy aril. The fruit is oval, bright red in colour, about 2 in. long
and covered with long fleshy hairs.
_Nephelium_ belongs to the natural order Sapindaceae, and contains
about twenty-two species.
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