CÆSALPINIA BRASILETTO, or Brasil wood. See Botany Index. Of this there are three species, the most remarkable of which is the brasilensis, commonly called Brasiletto. It grows naturally in the warmest parts of America, from whence the wood is imported for the dyers, who use it much. The demand has been so great, that none of the large trees are left in any of the British plantations; so that Mr Catesby owns himself ignorant of the dimensions to which they grow.
The largest remaining are not above two inches in thickness, and eight or nine feet in height. The branches are slender and full of small prickles; the leaves are pinnated; the lobes growing opposite to one another, broad at their ends, with one notch. The flowers are white, papilionaceous, with many stamens and yellow apices, growing in a pyramidal spike, at the end of a long slender stalk: the pods enclose several small round seeds. The colour produced from this wood is greatly improved by solution of tin in aqua regia. * See Co-
lor-making and Dyeing. The second sort is a native of the same countries with the first, but is of a larger size. It sends out many weak irregular branches, armed with short, strong, upright thorns. The leaves branch out in the same manner as the first; but the lobes, or small leaves, are oval and entire. The flowers are produced in long spikes like those of the former, but are variegated with red. These plants may be propagated from seeds, which should be sown in small pots filled with light rich earth early in the spring, and plunged in a bed of tanner's bark. Being tender, they require to be always kept in the stove, and to be treated in the same manner as other exotics of that kind.