174 ON THE PALMITE OF SOUTH AFRICA. 



i 



2, flower cut through vertically, showing three of the stamens and pis- 

 til; 3, transverse section of an ovary; 4, vertical section of ditto; 5, 

 capsule, from which the seeds have fallen • — magnified. 



Palmite, Palmiet, or Palmet, are names given to a very remarkable 

 aquatic Juncaceous plant (Juncus serratus, Linn.), having tall, thick, 

 trunk-like stems, broad, serrated, channelled leaves, from the centre of 

 which rises the much-branched panicle of flowers, inhabiting the beds of 

 streams and watery places in South Africa. Our attention has been lately 

 directed to this plant, from the circumstance of our having received a 

 living plant from Mr. Haage, of Erfurt, and its being in all the princi- 

 pal characters of the flowers so entirely a Juncus, while the habit and 

 coarse harsh foliage very much resemble that of some Bromeliaceous 

 plants, and the stem forms a trunk from five or six to ten and eleven 

 feet long, and as thick as a man's arm ! The base of the old leaves, 

 when the epidermis and parenchyma decay, afford an abundant coarse 

 and strong fibre, the threads held together by a kind of network (see 

 fig. 5), and which only needs to be tied together in bundles to form 

 good strong brushes and brooms. The remainder of the leaf abounds 

 in more elongated, and a far more delicate thready substance ; and we 

 have no doubt the nature and value of these two kinds of fibre will be 

 soon put to the test. In the meanwhile we have been anxious to lay 

 before our readers such particulars of this Rush as we can collect. 



It does not appear that the natives of South Africa make any parti- 

 cular use of the plant ; at least I do not find that any traveller there 

 alludes to such a fact. And it is remarkable that Thunberg, who was 



the first to discover and describe it, and speaks of the ''Palmiet Riviere' 9 

 which derives its name from its abundance there, yet nowhere alludes 

 to its peculiar character and features. For these we are indebted to 

 the accurate Burchell (' Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa')- 

 His first particular notice of it is at vol. i. p. 89 : — "We soon after- 

 wards crossed the Palmiet Biver, whose waters, like the great number 

 of those which take their rise from the southern side of the great 

 southern range of mountains, were of a brown colour, resembling 

 coffee, but at the same time clear and wholesome. . . . The Boors 

 believe this brownness to be caused by the great quantity of Palmite 

 (Palmiet) which everywhere grows in these streams ; but however much 

 they may assist in producing this effect, they are certainly not the chief 

 cause, since I have observed them to be thus coloured before they reach 



