E>DOGENs.] PALMACE^. 137 



beverage, and, when boiled, a kind of sugai', consumed lor various purposes. When the 

 trees are exhausted by tlie incessant (iraining of their fluids, Sago of good quaUty is 

 obtained from the trmik, — as much as 1 50 to 200 lbs. weight from a single tree. The 

 timber is extremely hard, and fit for building purposes ; and the leaf-stalks yield 

 annually from 4 to 7 lbs. of the strong black fibres, resembling horsehair, called 

 Gomutie, which are extensively used in the manufactm'e of cables and various kinds of 

 rope ; they are also employed for stitching together thatch, for making brooms and for 

 similar pm-poses. (Ai'e these the vegetable bristles now so largely imported for making 

 brooms i). The midribs of the side leaves are converted into pens called Pansmn, and 

 the fine arrows which the Indians blow from their long tubes. Finally, there is at the base 

 of the leaves a fine woolly material (Baru) much employed in caulking ships, as stuffing 

 for cushions, and as tinder. Theu' " Cabbage" is moreover eatable, Uke that of the West 

 Indian Cabbage Palm, Areca oleracea, whose huge terminal bud is kno^^•n by this name. 

 Egyptian BdelUum, a gum-resinous substance, formerly employed as a diuretic and 

 diaphoretic, is obtained from Hypheene thebaica. Besides the Sagueinis already men- 

 tioned, very considerable quantities of sugar are procured from Phoenix sylvestris, a 

 kind of wild date, which Dr. Roxbxu'gh computed to furnish annually in Bengal 100,000 

 cwt. of date sugar. 



The well known Betel Nut is the fruit of Areca Catechu, and remarkable for its 

 narcotic or intoxicating power ; from the same popular fruit is prepared a kuid of 

 spurious Catechu. It seems to me however doubtful whether the mtoxicating effect 

 of the Betel nut is not owmg to the Piper leaf in which it is ^^Tapped when eaten, rather 

 than to any special property of its own. 



Blume tells us that the Asiatic nations would rather forego meat and di'ink than 

 their favourite Ai-eca nuts ; whole ship-loads of wliich are annually exported from 

 Sumatra, Malacca, Siam, and Cochinchina. They contain a large quantity of tannin, 

 which has caused them to be employed in some part of India for dyeing cotton cloths. 

 The leafstalks, spathes, and timber are employed for many domestic pm'poses, and in 

 Malabar an inebriating lozenge is prepared from the sap. {Rumpliia, 2. 67.) In the 

 opinion of this author, the practice of chewing the nuts, although offensive to Euro- 

 peans, is really very conducive to health m the damp and pestilent regions of India, 

 where the natives live upon a spare and miserable diet. As to the Bi-azilian Palms, 

 Martius states that the kernel of various species of Attalea, when rubbed in water, form 

 an emulsion used in medicine, both externally and internally. The juice of the unripe 

 finiit of Cocos schizophyllus is employed in sUght ophthalmic attacks. 



The fruit of a few of them is eatable ; as, for example, the Date Palm, Phoenix 

 dactyUfera, which furnishes the most important part of their food to the tribes of the 

 desert ; some other species of Phoenix eaten in India ; the Cocoa Nut, too well known 

 to require description ; and the Doom Palm, Hyphsene thebaica, which is called in 

 Egypt the Gingerbread Tree, because of the extreme resemblance of its bro^^i mealy- 

 rind to that sort of cake ; Zalacca eduhs, a kind of Cane, with a juicy, pulpy cover- 

 ing to its seeds, much esteemed by the Bm-mese ; and a few others of less importance. 

 In some, however, the fruit is extremely acrid. 



The fruit of Saguems saccharifer is of that nature, excitmg severe inflammation in 

 the mouth of those who chew it ; it was the basis of the " infernal water" which 

 the Moluccans used in their wars, to pour over their enemies ; nevertheless, the 

 unripe albumen forms a beautiful kind of sweetmeat, which the Cliinese and Indian 

 nobles drmk with then- tea ; it is prepared by soaking in Ume-water and boihng 

 in refined sugar. The same acridity occm-s in the finiit of Caryota m^ens and some 

 other's. 



Oil and wax are only of less common occurrence than farinaceous secretions. Palm oil, 

 of which enoinnous quantities are employed in Europe as a sort of gi-ease, and in soap 

 and candle making, is chiefly obtained from Elais guineeusis and melanococca, and 

 these trees are also said to yield the best kind of Palm \\ine. CEnocarpus Bacaba and 

 many Cocointe are other species whose fruit contams oil. The Ceroxylon andicola, or 

 Wax Palm of Humboldt, has its trunk covered by a coating of wax, which exudes from 

 the spaces between the insertion of the leaves. It is, accordmg to Vauquelin, a con- 

 crete inflammable substance, consisting of l-3d wax and 2-3ds resin. It is a very 

 remarkable fact, first noticed by Brown (Conr/o, 456), that the plants of this order 

 whose fruit afTords oil belong to a tribe called by liim Cocomie, which are particularly 

 characterised by the originally trilocular putamen havmg its cells when fertile perforated 

 opposite the seat of the embryo, and, when abortive, indicated by foramuia cseca. A 

 species called Carnauba, in Brazil, thi'ows off waxy scales from its leaves. 



Cocoa-nut oil is imported into England in considerable quantities, and it is sur- 

 prising that it is not more generally used in England ; for, instead of the detestable 



