ThePlantWorld 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF POPULAR BOTANY. 



Vol. IV. JANUARY, 1901. No. 1. 



SOME FILIPINO BOTANY. 

 By Alice Caeter Cook. 



THE acquisition of our island territories has enlarged the field of 

 American science, and awakened the interest of American botan- 

 ists in tropical life, for even those who may never expect to see 

 or to specialize upon the new floras, must have some knowledge of them. 

 Hence has arisen a demand for the literature of the subject, and con- 

 spicuous among the few books brought to light upon the natural his- 

 tory of the Philippines, is Blanco's monumental " Flora," published in 

 four immense volumes at tlie expense of the Augustinians in 1880, and 

 now to be obtained with difliculty for the sum of $150. It is a typical 

 Spanish Church work, and whatever is true of the rest of it, the part of 

 the fourth volume entitled " The Declaration of the virtue of the trees 

 and plants which are in this land," by the parish priest, Ignasio de 

 Mercado, Filipino, with "scientific classification " by Fra Fernandez- 

 Villar will doubtless be found to contain many facts new to all readers, 

 and is worthy of some attention as indicative of the high state of scien- 

 tific attainment reached by the brotherhood. 



The plant world of the islands has e\identl3^ followed a course 

 quite unknown in the Western Hemisphere, and one which seems cal- 

 culated to upset current theories. For example, if the seeds of cala- 

 bashes " are sown without the shell, those which are formed within the 

 fruit afterwards will be ready husked." The fruit of Eurycles Amhoin- 

 ensis " is the root," and Tacca pahnata, which is able to preserve from 

 the bites of serpents and beetles the one who carries the root in his 

 hand, "has no flower nor fruit." The fruit of a species of Anacardium 

 is the size of a large apple, spongy and " without seed, for this it bears 

 outside like a great nugget." 



Here is a good example of lucidity. " The Calingag and the canelu 

 are the true cinnamon, and, meanwhile, the finer is the better. The 



