The Memoirs of Bābur 932.12.7

932.12.7

The (H.) _kanīr_ (_Nerium odorum_, the oleander)[1892] is another. It grows both red and white. Like the peach-flower, it is five petalled. It is like the peach-bloom (in colour?), but opens 14 or 15 flowers from one place, so that seen from a distance, they look like one great flower. The oleander-bush is taller than the rose-bush. The red oleander has a sort of scent, faint and agreeable. (Like the _jāsūn_,) it also blooms well and profusely in the [Sidenote: Fol. 288.] rains, and it also is had through most of the year. The (H.) (_kīūrā_) (_Pandanus odoratissimus_, the screw-pine) is another.[1893] It has a very agreeable perfume.[1894] Musk has the defect of being dry; this may be called moist musk—a very agreeable perfume. The tree's singular appearance notwithstanding, it has flowers perhaps 1-1/2 to 2 _qārīsh_ (13-1/2 to 18 inches) long. It has long leaves having the character of the reed (P.) _gharau_[1895] and having spines. Of these leaves, while pressed together bud-like, the outer ones are the greener and more spiny; the inner ones are soft and white. In amongst these inner leaves grow things like what belongs to the middle of a flower, and from these things comes the excellent perfume. When the tree first comes up not yet shewing any trunk, it is like the bush (_būta_) of the male-reed,[1896] but with wider and more spiny leaves. What serves it for a trunk is very shapeless, its roots remaining shewn.