ARUM AND CALLA, 303 



give this plant the name of Bloody Men's Fingt r§j 

 from the red berries that siirromul the sp.ulix. The 

 French have as many Vulgar names for the Arum 

 as ourselves, amongst which is Pied de Veau, from 

 the shape of the leaf resembling the bottom of a 

 calf's foot; Bonnet de grand Prf'trc, High Priest's 

 Mitre; Pain deLu'vrc, Hare's Bread, which seems 

 to imply that it is eaten by those animals. In some 

 parts of that country it is called Chou Polcre, 

 Pepper Cabbage. 



Sir Hans Sloane says that a species of these 

 plants is carefully cultivated in most of the planta- 

 tions in the West Indies, principally for the sake 

 of the leaves, which are boiled, and eaten like spi- 

 nach or cabbage. The roots are also eaten after 

 being baked in hot ashes. This species is found in 

 all the islands of the Southern Ocean, and is culti- 

 vated every where within the Tropics, and even in 

 the northern extremity of New Zealand. The 

 natives of the South-Sea Islands bestow great pains 

 on the culture of this root, by inundating the land 

 at one time, and draining it dry at others, by means 

 of ditches dug round the fields. Thus we have 

 another instance of the importance attached to the 

 same plants in one part of the world, which in others 

 are utterly despised, and deemed by the illiterate 

 almost a curse to the land. 



Old medical writers extol the virtues of this acrid 



