or Banksia Abyssinica**, is a beautiful and useful tree, indigenous to the high country of Abyssinia. At least Mr Bruce, who has given of it the only description which we have seen, says, that he never saw it in any other part of Asia or Africa. It seldom grows above twenty feet high, very rarely straight, generally crooked or inclined. Its leaf, which is of a deep unvarnished green, having the fore part covered with soft hair or down, is about 2½ inches long, divided by a strong rib into two unequal divisions, of which the upper is broader and larger than the lower. It is more indented than even the nettle leaf, which it in some measure resembles, only the leaf of the Cusso is narrower and longer.

Those leaves grow two and two upon a branch, having between each two the rudiments of two pairs of leaves, which probably are deciduous; but the branch is terminated with a single leaf or stipula at the point. The end of this stalk is broad and strong, like that of a palm branch. It is not solid like the gerid of the date tree, but opens in the part that is without leaves about an inch and a half from the bottom, and out of this aperture proceeds the flower. There is a round stalk, bare for about an inch and a quarter, from which proceed crooked branches with single flowers attached to their ends; the stalk that carries these proceeds out of every crook or geniculation. The whole cluster of flowers has very much the shape of a cluster of grapes; the stalks which support it resemble the stalks of the grape; and a very few small leaves are scattered through the cluster of flowers.

"The calyx or flower cup is of a greenish colour, tinged with purple; when fully blown it is altogether of a deep red or purple; the corolla is white, and consists of five petals; in the midst is a short pistil with a round head, surrounded by eight stamens, of the same form, loaded with yellow farina. The cup consists of five petals, which much resemble another flower; they are rounded at the top, and nearly of an equal breadth every way. The seed is very small, smaller than even the fennel fentonicum; and being likewise very bitter it is used in Abyssinia as a vermifuge. From its smallness, however, and its being very easily dried, no great quantity of it is ever gathered, and therefore the flower is often substituted in its stead. The Abyssinians, says our author, of both sexes, and at all ages, are troubled with the fort of worm called ascariasis, of which every individual evacuates a large quantity once a month. The method of promoting these evacuations is by infusing a handful of dry cusso flowers in about two English quarts of bouza, or the beer they make of teff (see *Trew Encycl.*), and after it has been steeped all night, the next morning it is fit for use.

"The bark of the tree is smooth, of a yellowish white, interposed with brown streaks, which pass through the whole body of the tree. It is not firm or hard, but rather flimsy and ready. On the upper part, before the first branch of leaves set out, are rings round the trunk, of small filaments of the consistence of horse hair: these are generally fourteen or fifteen in number, and are a very remarkable characteristic belonging to the tree."

From this description, which, it must be confessed, is not remarkable for perspicuity, and from an inspection of the figure which Mr Bruce has given of the cusso, we are inclined to rank it with the palms, as a new genus, nearest to the caryota.