MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 150 



year. It produces two kinds of maijams, or spudicos, male and foiualo. The 

 female spadix yields fruit, but no juice, and the male vice versa. Some trees 

 will produce five or six female spadices before they yield a single male om-, 

 and such are considex-ed unprofitable by the toddy collectors ; . . . . others 

 will pi'oduce one or two female spadices and the rest male, from each of which 

 the quantity of juice extx'acted is the same as that obtained from ten cocoa- 

 nut spadices. Each inai/am will yield toddy for at least three months, often 

 for five, and fresh tnayams make their appearance before the old ones are 

 exhausted ; in this way a ti'ee is kept in a state of productiveness for a num- 

 ber of years, the first maijam opening at the top of the stem, the next lower 

 down, and so on, until at last it yields one at the bottom of the trunk, with 

 which the tree terminates its existence." It should be stated that there Is 

 considerable irregularity about the distribution of the male and female flowers 

 on separate inflorescences, and also about the regular succession of the inflor- 

 escences from the first one at the top of the tree, to the last one at the bot- 

 tom. Barrett (') has remarked on this matter, from his observations in the 

 Philippines.' However, the quotation is correct in the main. The earliest, 

 and one of the best, descriptions of Arenga in botanical literature,, that of 

 Rumphius, makes clear the distinction between the two types of inflorescence, 

 but calls the fruit-bearing one the male. Drude says of Arenga that the 

 spadices are unisexual by abortion, but Blatter (") states that this is not 

 always the case, and quotes Brandis's statement (Indian Trees, p. G48) that 

 most branches bear both male and female flowers. In Asahan Batak the 

 fruit-bearing inflorescence is called the halto, and it is not tapped for juice. 

 The male inflorescence Is meang ni hagot. Before it is tapped, the peduncle, 

 botohon ni mcang, is poimded daily with a wooden mallet (pambalhal) for 

 from three to seven days. This custom is so widely followed throughout the 

 whole area in which Arenga is tapped that it is probably really beneficial, and 

 not, as Barrett (') suggests, a mere superstition. He tells that a tree which 

 was being tapped for records of yield stopped flowing, for easily explicable 

 rea.sons, but the natives (Luzon) attributed it to the natural resentment of 

 the tree at being tapped by one who did not own it. That in tlie Philippines 

 the beating of the peduncle may have become a mere ceremony, in the nature 

 of magic, is indicated by Barrett's stateihent (') that the peduncle "is beaten 

 or Whipped." Rumphius (') knew the process of tapping the palm in 

 Araboina, Bali, and Java, and mentioned the beating of the peduncle, as a 

 regular part of the procedure. "Si racemus florens baccas aperire incipiat, 

 crassus ejus caulis, ex quo dependet, per tres continues dies levi baculo feritur, 

 ut mollescat, s'ed simul, ne eadat, funiculo arboris ramo alligatur, qui tamen 

 dependens tenetur ; atque hac pulsatioue succus, qui ad laesam fluit partem, 

 allicitur." In Asahan the beating of the peduncle is often accompanied by a 

 chanted admonition to the tree to be generous, but the old men were too bash- 

 ful to repeat what they said, and I have not yet discovered whether or not 



