_Bhudianarti_, in Portuguese _Pau de merda_ or _Pau sujo_, is a kind of wood, of a dark red colour, which smells like human dung. By way of amusement, people in company sometimes put a piece of it secretly into the pocket of some one unacquainted with its properties, in order to divert themselves with his embarrassment. It has a great similarity to _Assafœtida_, called in the Malabar _Cayam_, or _Hingu_, with which the natives are accustomed to season their boiled rice. Of the banana fig, one of the most valuable of the Indian fruits, there are four different kinds, viz. _Cannpala_, the hollow fig; _Cadalipala_, or _Puvancà_, the garden-fig; _Eràden_, the sugar-fig, so called on account of its sweet taste; and _Nendaracà_, the roasting fig, which cannot be eat raw. The _Pála_, or proper Indian fig tree, has been very incorrectly described by Pliny in his Natural History[243]. He evidently confounds the _Pála_ with another tree called by the Portuguese _Arvore de raiz_. This tree rises to the height of the common chestnut-tree, but throws out from its branches a number of fibres, which become so long that they at last hang down to the ground, where they take root and produce other trees of the same kind perfectly similar to the parent-tree. In this manner they continue till from one tree there at length arises a whole forest. Certain travellers are, therefore, not in the wrong, when they assert, that, in India, there are trees under which a thousand men might find shelter. The Indians are accustomed to plant such trees in the neighbourhood of their temples or pagodas, that they may defend the people when assembled from the rain and the sun. I saw several of these trees at _Tiruvandaram_ and _Ciranga_, and could not help being wonderfully struck with this singular _lusus naturæ_. The Europeans settled on the coast of Malabar call this _Arvore de raiz_, the pagoda-tree. It has been described by Nierenberg in his Natural History[244]. * * * * * It cost me immense labour to collect this numerous catalogue of simples, and to add their Malabar, Latin, and Portuguese names; but it will perhaps enable those fond of botany to form some idea of the knowledge of the Indians in that branch of science. The sources I employed, besides my own experience, are the Dictionaries of Hanxleden, Viscoping, and Pimentel; the Herbarium of Father Feraz; and a manuscript containing observations by many regular physicians and botanists, natives of the coast of Malabar. To those acquainted with the appellations of the European simples and vegetables, and the purposes to which they are applied, it will not be difficult to learn the Malabar botany; but without such knowledge it will indeed be impossible to study it with advantage.