32 BOTANT. 



TREE RATAN. 



An arboreas species of ratan common in the jungles 

 Griffith justly terms : " a very elegant palm." 



Calamus arborescens. 



oD cvlu 



o$& 



RATAN SAGO TALM. 



The sago palm has not been discovered in these Pro- 

 vinces, but Griffith describes a palm from the Mergui 

 Islands, which he named the ratan sago palm. " It ap- 

 pears," he says, " to be osculant, between calamus, sagus, 

 and zalacca, having the habit of the former, the inflores- 

 cence of the second, and in some measure tiic seed of the 

 last genus ;" so that while it resembles a ratan, it has flow- 

 ers like the sago palm. 



Calamosagus lacinioius. 



BETEL PALMS. 



The palm which produces the betelnut is extensively 

 cultivated by the Burmese, and to a small extent by the 

 Karens It thrives luxuriantly on our Coast, and a grove 

 of hotel palms, with their slender, cylindrical stems peer- 

 ing fifty or sixty feet upward, waving their green plumes, 

 and fragrant flowers, presents a scene of sylvan beauty 

 Yarely to be excelled under our tropic sky. 



" Thus winds our path through many a bower 



Of fragrant tree «rer— 



While o'er the brake so wild and fair 



The betel waves hb crest i 



Yet who ir» Indian bowers has stood 



But thought on England's ! good greenwood : ' 



And blessed beneath her palmy 



The hazel and her hawthorn £ I 



And breathed a prayer, (how oft in vain ■) 



To gaze upon her oaks again." 



Areca Catechu. 



