2S6 BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. [September, 



BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 



Value of the Palm-tree. 



A correspondent of the TFest African Herald forwards the following 

 information relative to the uses of different portions of the Palm-tree : — 

 " First, the roots are used for various sorts of medicines, but chiefly for 

 medicines to cure bilious attacks. Secondly, the branches are used for 

 purposes of fencing yards, fields, etc., also for torches, and for .smoking 

 their di'ied fish. The leaves are made into brooms for sweeping, and like- 

 wise into twine. The tree itself produces the nut, which yields the va- 

 luable oil known as palm-oil. The kernel of this nut produces two diflerent 

 kinds of oil, one sort white, and the other brown. The pabn-oil of com- 

 merce is sold to the traders ; and it is also greatly used among the natives 

 for various purposes — as for making native soap and bmiiing in lamps. It 

 is used in cooking. It is also an excellent medicine. In some diseases 

 (most especially smaU-pox), this oil is administered internally as well as 

 externally. It is used for wounds and bruises and burns. In cases of 

 g-uinea-worm it is applied as a poultice. The white oil of the kernel is 

 used for the same purposes as palm-oil. In some parts of West Afiica, 

 however, it is not eaten. Not much of it is made on the Gold Coast. 

 None is sold to traders, all that is made being specially made for our o\vn 

 consumption. The brown oil of the kernel has also the same properties, 

 and is of course applied to the same uses as the white. I shall in another 

 paper explain the way in which these oils are manufactured. The nuts 

 from which palm-oil is expressed are made into beads after that process 

 has been gone through. The tree also produces a delicious beverage called 

 palm wine. After the wine has all been extracted, and the tree is appa- 

 rently dead, there come out of the trunk Mushrooms, and likewise a 

 quantity of large, white, fat maggots, considered by some of the natives a 

 delicious article of food." 



Speabwort. 



In a curious old and rare work called 'A Caveat for common Cursetors,' 

 printed in 1566, by Thomas Harman, under ' Pallyards,' chap. 7, he says : 

 — " All for ye most part of these will either lay to their legs an herbe called 

 spere wort, either arsnicke, which is ratesbane. The nature of this spere- 

 worte will raise a great blyster in a night upon the soundest part of his 

 body ; and if ye same be taken away, it will diy up again, and no harme." 



Query, — Is this the Ranunculus Mammula ? 



Shamrock. 



Dr. Threlkeld, in his ' Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum,' gives the fol- 

 lowing: Trifolium pratense album, white-flowered Meadow Trefoil. 



The Meadow Trefoils are called in Irish ' Shamrocke,' as Gerard writes, in 

 his ' Herbal,' which was first published in 1597 ; the editions after being 

 1633 and 1636 ; the words ' Seamaur Leaune ' and ' Seamar-oge ' being in 

 signification the same, the fii'st signifying the CMlcVs Trefoyl, the other the 



