880 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 
Sword bean. See Canarali ensiforie. 
Sword grass. See Viphagrostis floridulus. 
Synedrella nodiflora. 
Family Asteraceae. 
An introduced weed of tropical American origin with inconspicuous sessile axillary 
and terminal heads of flowers. Plant. erect, dichotomously branched; stem and 
branches terete, glabrous; leaves ovate-lanceolate, short-petioled, serrate, scaberu- 
lous, 3-nerved; heads small; inner involuere of bracts linear-lanceolate, shining; ray 
flowers | or 2-seriate, fertile, ligule short, broad, 2. or 3-toothed; disk-flowers her- 
maphrodite, fertile, tubular, limb 4-toothed; achenes slender, black; spines 2 to 3 
times as long, erect, very stout. 
Hitherto unknown from Guam; but of wide tropical distribution. Common near 
cultivation, 
REFERENCES: 
Synedrella nodiflora (L.) Gaertn. Fruet. 2: 456. 6. 177. 1791. 
Verbesina nodiflora L. Cent. Pl. 1: 28. 1755; Amoen. Acad. 4: 290, 1759. 
Syrrhopodon. See Mosses. 
Ta’amu (Samoa.) See Alocasia indica. 
Tabaco (Spanish). See Nicotiana tabaewn. 
Tabayag (Philippines). See Lagenaria lagenaria. 
Tabing (Philippines). See Abutilon indiewn. 
Tabunak (Philippines). See Trichoon roxburghii. 
Tacamahac. See Gums and resins, and Calophyllum inophyllum. 
Tacca pinnatifida. POLYNESIAN ARROWROOT. East INDIAN ARROWROOT. 
Family Taccaceae. 
Local NAMES.—Gabgab, Gapgap, Gaogao (Guam); Pannirien (Ilocos); Gaogao 
(Philippines); Mamago (Bougainville Straits); Yabia (Fiji); Pia, Masoa 
(Samoa); Pia (Tahiti, Hawaii); Pombwati (Burma). 
An interesting, monocotyledonous plant having edible starchy tubers resembling 
young potatoes, which yield the Polynesian or East Indian arrowroot. It has 3- 
parted irregularly pinnatifid leaves which are all radical and an umbel of dre oping 
greenish flowers with a leafy involucre and a number of very long filiform braets 
resembling flower-pedicles. Scape leafless, tapering, longer than the petiole, striped 
with dark and light green; flowers 10 to 40, subglobose, fleshy, 1.5 em. in diameter, 
6-lobed in two series, lobes greenish edged with purple; leaves of involucre lanceo- 
late, recurved, striped with purple; filiform bracts very numerous; stamens 6, at the 
base of the perianth lobes, filaments very short, base dilated or with an appendage 
on each side and dilated above into an inflexed hood with 2 ribs or horns on the 
inner surface; anthers sessile within the hood; ovary I-celled; style short, included, 
stigmas 3, broad or petaloid and reflexed like an umbrella over the style; ovules 
inany, on 3 parietal placentas; fruit the size of a pigeon’s egg, 6-ribbed, yellow. 
As with the yams, the tubers are mature when the plants die down. They are 
then dug up and are ready for conversion into starch or arrowroot, They are rasped 
or grated into a fine pulp which is put into a tub of water. This becomes milky and 
is strained through a coarse cloth or sieve to remove the coarser particles. On 
standing for some time the starch settles on the bottom and the clear liquid is care- 
fully poured off. The fresh root is very bitter, but by repeatedly pouring off the 
water and replacing it by fresh water the bitter principle is removed. When the 
starch is thoroughly washed it is dried in the sun after the manner of common 
arrowroot and cassava starch. In Locos and Zambales, of the Philippine group, 
where it is abundant, the natives prepare the starch by rasping the roots on a rough 
stone in water. The starch finds a ready sale in Manila, where it is mixed with 
