or Minispermum palmatum) furnishes the medicinal Colombo root, which is one of the most useful stomachics and tonics in cases of dyspepsia.  It is scarcely ever cultivated, the spontaneous produce of thick forests on the shores of Oibo and Mozambique and many miles inland on the eastern shores of Africa, Madagascar and Bombay, proving sufficient.  The supplies principally go to Ceylon.  The roots are perennial, and consist of several fasciculated, fusiform, branched, fleshy, curved and descending tubers, from one to two inches thick, with a brown warty epidermis; internally deep yellow, odorless, very bitter.

The main roots are dug up by the natives in March (the hot season).  The offsets are cut in slices and hung up on cords to dry in the shade.  It is deemed fit to ship when, on exposure to the sun, it breaks short, and of a bad quality when it is soft and black.—­("Pereira’s Materia Medica.”)

It contains a bitter crystallizable principle called Calumbin.

The commercial parcels are often adulterated with the roots of Costus indicus, C. speciosus, and C.  Arabicus (Kusmus, Putckuk, &c.).  It is imported into this country in bags and chests of from one to three cwt., and ranges in price from L1 to L2 the cwt.  The imports in 1846 to London were 82 packages, and in 1850, 214 packages, but the stock held in London is always large, being nearly 2,500 packages.

Colocynth, furnished by Cucumis colocynthis and C. pseudocolocynthis, is the dried medullary part of a wild species of gourd which is cultivated in Spain.  It also grows wild in Japan, the sandy lands of Coromandel, Cape of Good Hope, Syria, Nubia, Egypt, Turkey, and the islands of the Grecian Archipelago.  It may be obtained in the jungles of India in cart loads.  The fruit, which is about the size of an orange, with a thin but solid rind, is gathered in autumn, when ripe and yellow, and in most countries is peeled and dried either in the sun or by stoves.  It comes over from Cadiz, Trieste, Mogadore, &c., in cases, casks, &c., and duty was paid on about 11,000 lbs. in 1839.

CUBEBS.—­The dried unripe fruit of P.  Cubebi, or Cubeba qfficinalia, a climbing plant of the pepper tribe, native of Prince of Wales’ Island, Java, and the Indian islands furnishes the medicinal cubebs, which is used extensively in arresting discharges from mucous membranes.  In appearance cubebs resemble black pepper, except that they are higher colored and are each furnished with a stalk two or three lines long.  Dr. Blume says, that the cubebs of the shops are the fruit of P. caninum.  This species of pepper, when fresh and good, contains nearly 10 per cent. of essential oil.

In 1842 the quantity entered for home consumption was 67,093 lbs.  The average imports are about 40 to 50 tons annually. 3 cases were imported into Liverpool in 1851.  The price in the Liverpool market, in January 1853, was L3 10s. to L4 10s. the cwt.