AMADOU

The French name of the spongy combustible substance, called in German zunderschwamm , prepared from a species of agaric, the boletus igniarius , a kind of mushroom, which grows on the trunks of old oaks, ashes, beeches, . It must be plucked in the months of August and September. It is prepared by removing the outer bark with a knife, and separating carefully the spongy substance of a yellow brown colour, which lies within it, from the ligneous matter below. This substance is cut into thin slices, and beat with a mallet to soften it, till it can be easily pulled asunder between the fingers. In this state the boletus is a valuable substance for stopping oozing hemorrhages, and some other surgical purposes. To convert it into tinder it must receive a finishing preparation, which consists in boiling it in a strong solution of nitre; drying it, beating it anew, and putting it a second time into the solution. Sometimes, indeed, to render it very inflammable, it is imbued with gunpowder, whence the distinction of black and brown amadou. All the puff balls of the lycopodium genus of plants, which have a fleshy or filamentous structure, yield a tinder quite ready for soaking in gunpowder water. The Hindoos employ a leguminous plant, which they call solu , for the same purpose. Its thick spongy stem, being reduced to charcoal, takes fire like amadou.