138 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
low habit, averaging fifteen to twenty feet in height. The 
leaves, which are long, arched, and pinnate, crown the short 
trunk. 
The female plant of Phytelephas macrocarpa is of com- 
mercial value for its nut-like seeds which are used as a sub- 
stitute for ivory. These are obtained from trees as young 
as six years old. The nuts are enclosed in large pods, often 
weighing twenty pounds, sometimes called nigger-heads. 
They contain from six to nine nuts which generally drop to 
the ground after the pods naturally dehisce. The nuts are 
about the size of a small potato, oval in shape, fine-grained, 
of hard white composition closely resembling that of real 
ivory, especially when dried and eut. After being polished 
they are carved into chess men, ornaments, buttons, drawer 
knobs, faney goods, etc. 
The Colombian government permits free collection in the 
tagua groves, but a three per cent ad valorem export duty is 
charged on the nuts at the port of export, usually at Barran- 
quilla or Buenaventura. The gathering of the nuts presents 
no great difficulty, but, because of their bulk and weight, 
transportation is quite a problem. Freighting down the Mag- 
dalena is out of the question on account of the excessive rates 
charged by the steamship lines, and the usual manner of 
transportation is by mule back to the Magdalena river ports, 
then by the crude native rafts of lumber and bamboo to the 
coastal ports where the combined cargo of nuts and rafts are 
sold. 
During the war, and even up to the present time, the 
United States was the chief market for the sale of the tagua 
nuts. Prior to the war Germany and Great Britain were the 
largest consumers, but with the war prices dropped so low 
that the natives could not afford to gather the nuts, and great 
quantities were stored at various shipping points, principally 
in Ecuador. The nuts from Ecuador are well-dried and 
sorted and accordingly command the highest prices. 
Up to the present time no attempt has been made to culti- 
vate the palm, probably owing to the unlimited areas grow- 
ing naturally. The high-grade nuts, when shelled and cleaned, 
bring as high as seventy-five to ninety dollars a ton during 
normal times. In 1919 5,234,369 pounds of nuts were im- 
ported into the United States. In 1917 the Button Manufac- 
turers’ Corporation, of Newark, New Jersey, established in 
