in botany: A genus of the triandra order, belonging to the dioeca clas of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 38th order, Tricocca. The male antherum is naked; there is no calyx nor corolla; there are three styles, and a tricous capsule. There is but one species, the agalocha, or aloes-wood, a native of China and some of the Indian islands, is about the same height and form as the olive tree. Its trunk is of three colours, and contains three sorts of wood: the heart is that of tabac or calombac, which is dearer in the Indies than even gold itself. It serves to perfume cloths and apartments; and is esteemed a sovereign cordial in fainting fits, a restorative in the palsy, and a cure for affections in children. It is burnt as incense in the Chinese and Indian temples; and it is also used to set the most precious jewels that are worked in the Indies.

The aloes-wood is very highly valued; and strange fables were invented as to the origin of the tree that yields it; some pretending that it grew in Paradise, and was only conveyed to us by means of the rivers overflowing their banks and sweeping off the trees in their way; others affirming that it grew on inaccessible mountains, where it was guarded by certain wild beasts, &c. The Siamese ambassadors to the court of France in 1686, who brought a present of this wood from their emperor, first gave the Europeans any confident account of it. See Xrio-Aloes.