vatblue (vatblo)

Same as indigo blue (which see, under indigo ). Vateria (va-teri-ä), n. [NL. (Linnæus, 1737), named after Abraham Vater, a German botanist (18th century).] A genus of polypetalous plants, of the order Dipterocarpeæ, characterized by lobes reflexed, but not enlarged in fruit. The 28 flowers with about fifteen stamens, and calyx species, with one exception, are natives of tropical Asia, especially Ceylon. They are resin-bearing trees, with entire coriaceous veiny leaves, and white or pale-yellow flowers on short lateral peduncles, or forming terminal panicles. V. Seychellarum of the Seychelles, a tall tree reaching 100 feet high, is exceptional in its calyx, which is not reflexed in fruit. V. Indica and V. a cum in at a are exceptional in their stamens, which reach fifty in each flower. The latter is a large handsome tree of Ceylon, its twigs reddened with dense hairs; its green resin is valued by the Cingalese for ceremonial uses. V. Indica, the pinne of the Tamul races, known as piny varnish-, copal, or tallow -tree, a native of Ceylon and Malabar, is the chief source of the white dammar of the bazars of southern India, which i ues from notches cut in its bark as a white, pellucid, fragrant, acid, and bitter resin, later becoming brittle and yellow or greenish; it is known as Malabar copal, gum anime, etc. (see piny ), and is there used as a varnish for carriages and pictures, is cut into ornaments under the name of am ber, is made into ointments, and is used for incense, burning with a clear white light with pleasant fragrance and little smoke. The tree bears oblong petioled leaves, and erect white flowers nearly an inch broad arranged in a single row on the spreading branches of large terminal panicles, followed by small oblong three-valved fleshy fruits, valued in the manufacture of candles (see piny tal low, under piny ); the seeds are eaten to allay nausea; the gray heart-wood is employed in making canoes and masts. Like a late-sack'd island, vastly stood Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood. Shak., Lucrece, 1. 1740. ampulla. Vater's corpuscles. Same as Pacinian corpus cles. See corpuscle. Vater's diverticulum. Same as Vater's am pull a. Beverley, Virginia, ii. 3. I will be so honest as to own that the obliging things you say to me please me vastly . Walpole , Letters, II. 37. The state or character vastne (våst'nes), n . of being vast; greatne ; immensity. The unity reigning through a work upon which so generations labored the Bible gives erary genius shows by the side of it like some building of al lid (the Bible it a vastne beyond human hands beside the Peak of Teneriffe. J. R. Seeley, Nat. Religion, p. 168.