Callidium

[Gr. kalos, beautiful, and eidos, form.] ( Zool.) Small beetles, infesting houses, and very destructive to woodwork, especially of spruce and fir. One of this family ( Calidium bajulus ), a flattish, rusty-black insect, will, according to Me rs. Kirby and Spende, not only eat their way through the rafters of a house, but even bore through sheet-lead; fragments of lead having been, found in their stomachs. Callig'onum, n . [Gr. kalos , beautiful, gonia , angle.] (Bot.) A genus of plants, order Polygon aceæ , characterized by a quadrangular fruit, winged at the angles. The species C. pallasia , which is found on the sandy steppes near the Caspian Sea, is valued by the wandering Kalmucks for the acid juice of its fruit and shoots, and for the nutritious gum which may be obtained from its root.