FLOllA OF THE ISTILMUS OF PAXAiU. 
209 
uective is mucronulate, and the poUeu elliptical and fiuTowed lengthways. The inflorescence of the female 
plant has three or four spathes, and consists of a simple spadii hearing on an average from six to serea 
flowers, which fonn a dense cluster, and are surrounded by bracts, placed in a spiral direction, the upper- 
most five of which, being often much longer than the style, but generally shorter, and pure white, have the 
appearance of petals ; the stamens are numerous, free, sterile, inserted in the torus between the petaloid 
bracts and the ovaiy. The ovary is from six- to nine-celled, each cell containing a solitary, sessile, en'ct 
OTule, attached to an axilo placenta. The style is elongated, splitting into sii, seven, eight, or nine 
branches, stigmatosc on the edges. The fruit, a collection of from six to seven drupes, forms olustirs. 
which are as large as a man's head, and stands at first erect, but when approaching maturity — its 
weit'ht increasing, and the leaf-stalk, whicli, having up to that period supported the bulky niaas, having 
rotted away — it hangs down. A plant bears at one time from six to eight of these heads, each weighing, 
when ripe, about twenty-five pound::!. The drupes are covered outside with hard woody protubenmees, 
formed in the same manner as those of the trunk of Testudinaria Elephantli'qjes. Each drupe contaiuH 
from six to nine seeds, but generally seven. The testa is thick, bony ; the embryo peripherical, and 
placed near the hilum. 
Morren (' Dodonata, ou Eecueil d'Observations de Botanique,' vol. i. part ii. page 74) has made the 
following observations on the seeds : — " The external covering of the seed is so hard as to be almost stony, 
yellowish-grey, smooth, and destitute of gloss : it is attached to a second coating, which is brown, porous, 
and dull, and is incorporated with it. Beneath a hollow, which separates these two integuments, is a 
third, brown, veined, wartcd, and glossy covering, traversed by numerous fibres, under which lies the 
albumen, which forms the Vegetable Ivory. The Vegetable Ivory is of the purest white, and free from 
veins, dots, or vessels of any kind, presenting a perfect uniformity of texture, surpassing the finest annnal 
ivory J and its substance is everj^where so hard, that the slightest streaks from tiie turning-lathe are 
observable, and cannot be erased till it is newly fashioned, "\\1ien the article is carved, the Vegetable 
Ivory may be known by its brightness, and by its fatty appearance, whereon the well-skilled may discern 
the minute lines which are the beds of cells. Its structure would almost seem to show more analogy 
with bone than with ivory ; but a microscopic investigation quickly proves that Vegetable \\ovy possesses 
an entirely different structure. This structure is among the most curious in the vegetable kingdom. 
The external covering of the albumen is composed, as we proceed from the outside to the inside, of— 1. A 
layer of ovoid cellules, with brown thick parictes ; the elongated centre of each cellule is filled with a 
darker substance. 2. A second layer of ovoid ceUs, placed perpendicularly on the first, but with the 
innermost elongated, and approximatmg towards the structure of the next layer. 3. A third layer of 
cells, still more elongated and fusiform ; their parictes are thick and brown. 4. A foui-th layer of 
smaller and prismatic ceUs, plaeed perpendicularly and regularly over the preceding layer : they rest in 
turn upon the last, which is-5. A final layer of very dark and irregular cells, externally coated, on the 
side towards the albumen, with a brown colouring matter, which imparts its hue to the surface of the 
albumen or Vegetable Ivory." All the above-described organization belongs only to the mtegumentary 
system. " The albumen, or Vegetable Ivory itself, is composed of concentric byers, of winch only the 
most external differ from the most internal, men the albumen is hard, as was that which I examined, it 
presents a white substance, transparent in water, and which appears continuous, and not to be distm- 
guished into various degrees of growth. It is perforated with an infinity of holes, the sections of so 
many cavities ; the latter are irregularly rounded, and also prolonged into arms or tubes which give a 
Bta4 appearance to the cavities, many of them being five, six, seven, eight, and ten rayed. ITcre and here 
may be seen a little spheroidal cavity ; finaUy the tubes nppear to be each tipped with a small swollen head. 
Throughout the albumen the above-describcd structure is more or less regular, offenng a beautiful study to 
the vegetable anatomist. ., j. ,i • . i i. *- „„„+„,„ .*• 
"Generally ^-aking, the starry cavities are arranged in a quincunx, so that the mterval between two of 
t 
