Chapter XLVI: Section V (5)

SAPONACEOUS PLANTS.--Many plants furnish abroad useful substitutes for common soap. The aril which surrounds the seed and the roots of _Sapindus Saponaria_, an evergreen tree, I have seen used as soap in South America and the West Indies under the name of soap berries. The seed vessels are very acrid, they lather freely in water and will cleanse more linen than thirty times their weight of soap, but in time they corrode or burn the linen. Humboldt says that proceeding along the river Carenicuar, in the Gulf of Cariaco, he saw the Indian women washing their linen with the fruit of this tree, there called the parapara. Some other species of _Sapindus_ and of _Gypsophila_ have similar properties. The bruised leaves and roots of _Saponaria officinalis_, a British species, form a lather which much resembles that of soap, and is similarly efficacious in removing grease spots. The bark of many species of Quillaia, as _Q. saponaria_, when beaten between stones, makes a lather which can be used as a substitute for soap, in washing woollens and silk clothes, and to clean colors in dyeing, in Chili and Brazil, but it turns linen yellow. The fruit of _Bromelia Pinguin_ is equally useful. A vegetable soap was prepared some years ago in Jamaica from the leaves of the American aloe (_Agave Americana_) which was found as detergent as Castile soap for washing linen, and had the superior quality of mixing and forming a lather with salt water as well as fresh. Dr. Robinson, the naturalist, thus describes the process he adopted in 1767, and for which he was awarded a grant by the House of Assembly:--"The lower leaves of the Curaca or Coratoe (_Agave karatu_) were passed between heavy rollers to express the juice, which, after being strained through a hair cloth, was merely inspissated by the action of the sun, or a slow fire, and cast into balls or casks. The only precaution necessary was to allow no mixture of any unctuous materials, which destroyed the efficacy of the soap. A vegetable soap, which has been found excellent for washing silk, &c, may be thus obtained. To one part of the skin of the Ackee add one and a half part of the _Agave karatu_, macerated in one part of boiling water for twenty-four hours, and with the extract from this decoction mix four per cent. of rosin. In Brazil, soap is made from the ashes of the bassura or broom plant (_Sidu lanceolata_) which abounds with alkali. There are also some soap barks and pods of native plants used in China. Several other plants have been employed in different countries as a substitute for soap. The bark of _Quillaia saponaria_ renders water frothy and is used as a detergent by wool dyers. _Saponaria vaccana_ is common in India. The pericarp of _Sapindus emarginatus_ mixed with water froths like soap. Saponaceous berries are found in Java.

The soap-worts to which the genus Sapindus belongs are tropical plants. The fruit of many species of _Sapindus_ is used as a substitute for soap, as _Sapindus acuminata_, _Laurifolius emarginatus_ and _detergens_, all East Indian plants.