DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 351 
sugar and made into sweetmeats.” In Fiji the natives use graters of mushroom coral 
(Fungia). As formerly made by the Fijians the starch was frequently of a grayish 
color, owing to the fact that the tubers were not first peeled and the starch was not 
sutliciently washed. When it became an article of export from the Fiji Islands 
the natives were taught to prepare it more carefully. For their own use they did 
not dry it but buried it in the ground, wrapped in leaves, so that it might ferment 
after the manner of breadfruit.? In Samoa the fresh starch is always used for past- 
ing together the thin layers of beaten bark of the paper mulberry ( Broussonetia 
papyrifera) in making tapa, or ‘‘siapo,’”? as bark cloth is there called. In Guam it 
is used for starching clothes and for making sweetmeats called ‘ bufiuelos.’’? The 
root itself is not used as a vegetable. 
Asa food for invalids the arrowroot made from Tacca is said to be superior to all 
others. ‘It is invaluable when taken in cases of dysentery and diarrhea.’’ ? 
From the petioles and flower scapes the natives of Tahiti get an excellent straw for 
braiding hats, which they prepare by splitting into narrow strips, curing, and drying, 
Hats made from this straw were purchased by the officers of the U. S..8. Mohican in 
1886. They were white and glossy and of light weight. It is said that the late Queen 
Victoria had a bonnet made of this material. ? 
The plant is found growing wild in Guam and is also cultivated. It is widely 
spread in Polynesia, and is found in Australia, the German colonies in the Solomon 
Islands and Bismarck Archipelago, and in the East Indies. The natives of the 
island of Cheduba, on the coast of Burma, make arrowroot from it; but onthe neigh- 
boring mainland it is not utilized.¢ In the State of Travancore, near the southern 
point of India, the plant is cultivated and forms an important article of trade. The 
root here grows toa large size, and is much eaten by the natives, who mix with it 
agreeable acids to overcome its pungency. 
REFERENCES: 
Tacea pinnatifida Forst. Char. Gen. 70. £. 35. 1776, 
Taeniophyllum fasciola. ORCHID. 
Family Orchidaceae. 
Loca Names. —Kamuke nanole (Guam); Uramaore (Tahiti). 
Asmall stemless, epiphytal orchid, with the habit of Polyrrhiza, apparently leafless 
after the first growth; roots flattened, fasciculate, interlaced; leaves 2 or 3 or absent, 
linear, fleshy, veinless; peduncle radical, filiform; flowers very minute, spicate; sepals 
and petals nearly alike, together with lip connate in a 6-toothed perianth; lip boat- 
shaped, the margins free, fleshy, the base produced into a saccate spur; dorsal side 
of spur continuing the base of the column; column very short, broad, foot lacking; 
anther 2-celled, pollinia 4, in superposed pairs, pyriform, waxy, sessile on the gland; 
adyentitious roots spreading, flexuose, elongate, and lying flat on the bark of the 
tree on which the plant grows, 20 em. long and 2 to 3 mm. wide. Flowers green, 
soft, minute, not conspicuous. 
Collected in Guam by Gaudichaud and by him called Vanilla fasciola, This plant 
occurs also in the Society Islands and in Fiji.¢ In Endlicher’s Flora der Siidseeinseln 
it is called Limodorum fasciola.t 
REFERENCES: 
Taeniophyllum fasciola (Forst. f.) Reichenb, f. in Seem. Fl. Vit. 296, 1863. 
Epidendrum fasciola Forst. f. Prod. 60. 1786. 
Vanilla fasciola Gaudich, Bot. Freye. Voy. 427, 1826. 
« Blaneo, Flora de Filipinas, p. 262, 1837. 
bSeemann, Flora Viticnsis, p. LOL, 1865-1873. 
¢ Williams, On the Farina of the Tacca pinnatifida, Pharmaceutical Journ. and 
Trans., vol. 6, p. 3883, [846-1847. 
@ Drury, Useful Plants of India, p. 425, 1858. 
eSeemann, Flora Vitiensis, p. 296, 1865-1873. 
J Ann. des Wiener Museums, vol. J, p. 168, 1836. 
