460 On Vegetable Izwry. [Sess. 



district of South America. The tree is described as very- 

 handsome in appearance. The stem is somewhat procumbent, 

 due partly to its own weight and partly to its aerial roots, and 

 thus forms a creeping caudex, which is frequently 20 feet 

 long, but seldom higher than 6 feet. A magnificent cluster 

 of light-green pinnatifid leaves, used by Indians for thatching 

 huts, crowns the tree top ; and being of an exclusive habit, 

 growing only in clumps quite separate from other plants, a 

 Phytelephas grove forms an outstanding feature in the land- 

 scape. The tree is found near the sea-coast in Darien, and 

 reaches an altitude of more than 3000 feet in New Granada, 

 but grows most abundantly on the banks of the river Magda- 

 lena, in Columbia. A damp soil seems to be necessary for its 

 culture. 



Botanists differ as to the position of the ivory palm in the 

 vegetable kingdom. By several it has been classed with the 

 palms, by others with the screw pines, while later authorities 

 accord it a place midway between these two orders. The male 

 and female flowers grow on separate trees. Male plants have 

 higher, more erect, and more robust trunks ; but in both sexes 

 the inflorescence consists of flowers without a perianth arranged 

 on a fleshy spadix. The fruit is formed of six or seven drupes 

 clustered together in a mass as large as a man's head. As 

 each drupe contains from six to nine seeds, and a tree usually 

 bears from six to eight heads, this gives a total of from 200 

 to 300 nuts as the produce of each tree. The drupes are 

 covered outside with hard woody protuberances. In its very 

 young state the seed contains a clear insipid fluid, which trav- 

 ellers drink. As it advances in growth, the fluid becomes 

 sweet and milky, and at this stage bears and hogs eat the nuts 

 greedily. (By the way, hogs are particularly fond of nuts. A 

 friend in Ireland has two walnut trees in a park some hun- 

 dreds of yards from his farm. When the nuts rij)en and drop 

 to the ground, it is a sight to see the pigs scampering across 

 the park as soon as the gate is opened. It will be remembered 

 that in Germany pigs wander at large in the forest in autumn, 

 subsisting on the fallen beech-mast.) In course of time the 

 endosperm gradually hardens until it acquires a consistency 

 almost as dense as ivory. A mature seed measures about 2 

 inches in length by 1 h inch in breadth, and is roughly triangular 



