The Universal Herbal: Croton Sebiferum; Poplar-leaved Croton.

The Universal Herbal;
or botanical, medical and agricultural dictonary.
Containing an account of All the known Plants in the World, arranged according to the Linnean system. Specifying the uses to which they are or may be applied, whether as food, as medicine, or in the arts and manufactures.
With the best methods of propagation, and the most recent agricultural improvements.
collected from indisputable Authorities.
Adapted to the use of the farmer - the gardener - the husbandman - the botanist - the florist - and country housekeepers in general.
By Thomas Green.
Vol. I
Liverpool.
Printed at the Caxton Press by Henri Fisher.
Printer in Ordinary to His Majesty.
1824Leaves rhomb-ovate, acuminate, flat, smooth; glands subpetiolar; leaflets broader than they are long, and involute. The leaves dye a very fine black. They wither in October, turn to a dirty crimson colour, and fall off before the capsules. The young leaves shoot out again in March. Each capsule contains three hard black shells, the size of pepper-corns or common peas, covered entirely with a delicately snow-white substance, which does not produce the tallow, as it is commonly supposed, it is made from the oil expressed from the kernel; and the white substance above mentioned must be well cleaned from the shells before they are broken, for that will absorb a considerable quantity of oil. For this purpose, the shells should remain ten or fifteen days in water to soak, and then they may be cleared of the white substance by rubbing, although it will not easily separate from the shell. The oil drops from the press like thick glutinous lamp-oil, and soon hardens by cold to the consistence of common tallow, and by boiling becomes as hard as bees' wax. - Native of China.