632 SOME OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF ECONOMIC BOTANY. 
Jonophallus Konjak has a large bulbous root, which is sliced, dried, 
and beaten to a powder. It is an ingredient in cakes. 
Aralia cordata is cultivated for the shoots, and used as we use aspar- 
agus. 
(nanthe stolonifera and Cryptotenia Canadensis are palatable salad 
plants, the former being used also as greens. 
There is little hope, if any, that we shall obtain from the hotter eli- 
mates for our southern territory new species of merit. The native 
markets in the tropical cities like Colombo, Batavia, Singapore, and 
Saigon, are rich in fruits, but outside of the native plants bearing these 
nearly all the plants appear to be wholly in established lines of eultiva- 
tion, such, for instance, as members of the gourd and night-shade 
families. 
Before we leave the subject of our coming vegetables, it will be well 
to note a naive-caution enjoined by Vilmorin in his work, Les Plantes 
Potagéres.* 
‘‘ Finally,” he says, ‘‘ we conclude the article devoted to each plant 
with a few remarks on the uses to which it may be applied and on the 
parts of the plants which are to be soused. In many cases such remarks 
may be looked upon as idle words, and yet it would sometimes have 
been useful to have them when new plants were cultivated by us for 
the first time. For instance, the giant edible burdock of Japan (Lappa 
edulis) was tor a long time served up on our tables oniy as a wretchedly 
poor spinach, because people would cook the leaves, whereas, in its 
native country, it is only cultivated for its tender fleshy roots.” 
I trust you are not discouraged at this outlook for our coming vege- 
tables. 
Two groups of improvable food-plants may be referred to before we 
pass to the next class, namely, edible fungi and the beverage plants. 
All botanists who have given attention to the matter agree with the 
late Dr. Curtis of North Carolina that we have in the unutilized mush- 
rooms an immense amount of available nutriment of a delicious quality. 
It is not improbable that other fungi than our common “ edible mush- 
room” will by and by be subjected to a careful selection. 
The principal beverage-plants, tea, coffee and chocolate, are all 
attracting the assiduous attention of cultivators. The first of these 
plants is extending its range at a marvelous rate of rapidity through 
India and Ceylon; the second is threatened by the pests which have 
almost exterminated it in Ceylon, but a new species, with crosses there- 
from, is promising to resist them successfully; the third, chocolate, is 
every year passing into lands farther from its original home. To these 
have been added the kola (of a value as yet not wholly determined), 
and others are to augment the short list. 
* Loc. cit. Preface in English edition. 
lta 
