2. Lin-a-Loa.—

Our attention has been drawn to a scented wood used in San Francisco in the manufacture of furniture. By the kindness of Mr. W. L. Booker, H.M.'s Consul in that city, a specimen of the wood and a box lined with it have been obtained for the Kew Museum. Mr. Booker states:—"It comes in pieces about the size of a railroad sleeper from the highlands, of Mexico, but I have been unable to ascertain what it is botanically. The wood is only used for veneering or in the manufacture of small fancy articles."

We had no difficulty in identifying Mr. Booker's specimens with a wood which already existed in the Kew Museum, and which appears to be yielded by a species of Bursera. It has indeed been known in Mexico for the last half century, and was referred to by Guibourt under the name, of Bois de Citron du Mexique [see Journal of the Pharmaceutical Society, 2nd series, Vol. X., pp. 590-593]. Further material in the shape of dried specimens, with both fruit and flowers, is much to be desired for the purpose of ascertaining definitely the tree which produces it. The name Lin-a-Loa is clearly a corruption of Lign Aloës, which has been identified with Aquilaria Agal-locha, otherwise known as Eagle-wood [Kew Report, 1878, p. 36]. This is, however, a tree confined to the Old World, and the Mexican one has no connection with it. The wood of the latter is imported into this country for manufacture into perfumery, a fragrant oil known as otto of linaloe being distilled from it.