PALLADIUM. 



PALMULARIA. 



173 





resembling a bead with a broad-brimmed hat on ; the French call the 

 tree ' Porte Chapeau.' This species of Paliurwi is one of the most 

 common thorns in the berfges of Asia, and its flexible spiny branches 

 form an impassable kind of fence. The seeds are sold in the herb- 

 shops of Constantinople, and the native doctors prescribe them in 

 many complaints under the name of ' Xalle.' They are also used as 

 a dye. It is common in the south-east of Europe and in Asia Minor, 

 and in the districts where it grows there is a tradition that this 

 is the plant from which the Jews platted the crown of thorns for 

 our Saviour. In thia country it is not uncommon in shrubberies, 

 where it forms a beautiful bush when in flower, but it does not ripen 

 its fruit. It is supposed to be the third sort of 'Paju'os mentioned by 

 Dioscorides, who compares the form of the fruit to that of a vertebra ; 

 if so the rioAiovpor of this author must have been something else, and 

 perhaps, as Sibthorp conjectures, the modern Zt(t<t>t, Ziziphtu vulgarit, 

 or Jujube. 



PALLADIUM. [PLATINUM.] 



PALLAH. [ANTILOPE.E.] 



PALLIOBRANCHIATA, M. De Blainville's name for his first 

 order of his clas (the 3rd of the ifalacozoa) Acephalophora. 



PALLIUM, the mantle of Mollutca. The mark formed by it in 

 bivalve shells is called the Pallial Impression. This mark is normally 

 found near the margin of the shell, and is thence sometimes called the 

 Marginal Impression. In the Dimyaria, or bivalves which have two 

 impressions of muscles of attachment, this mark passes from one of 

 those impressions to the other; and if in its passage it bends inwards 

 posteriorly, it is said to be Sinuated, and the part where this occurs is 

 the Siphonal Scar of Dr. Gray. 



PALM-OIL. [EL.EIS.] 



PALM-WINE. [BORASSCS.] 



PALMA CHRISTI. [RiciNus.] 



PALMACE.fi, Palms, a natural order of Endogenous Plants, usually 

 trees, with simple stems, inhabiting the warmer parts of the world 

 and especially tropical countries. They constitute a most important 

 order, on account of the many uses to which the species or their 

 products are applied. They are nearly allied to the Liliaceous and 

 Juncaceous or Rushy Plants of northern countries. Linnaeus, who 

 had scarcely any means of judging of the real structure of their fructi- 

 fication, and was therefore uncertain where to station them in his 

 sexual system, placed them in an Appendix by themselves and 

 called them the Princes of Vegetation. It has now however been 

 ascertained that they chiefly belong to Hexandria, ifonaxia, and 

 Dicecia, 



In general they adhere to the soil by clusters of strong simple roots 

 which not uncommonly form a hillock elevated above the surface of 

 the ground. Their trunks are solid, harder on the outside than the 

 centre, and are sometimes, as in the Cane-Palms, coated by a layer of 

 siliceous matter; they are usually quite simple, growing exclusively 

 by a single terminal bud, called in the Areca its cabbage, and eaten as 

 a delicacy when boiled ; but in the Hyphcmc, or Doom-Palm, they are 

 regularly forked. In the majority of the order the stem is nearly 

 cylindrical, but in some it is thickest at the base, and in others swollen 

 in the middle ; occasionally it is defended by strong hard spines, but 

 is more frequently unarmed, and marked by rings which indicate the 

 places whence the leaves fall off. 



The leaves, called fronds by Linnaeus, are alternate, with a very 

 hard epidermis and a distinct petiole, from the base of which a coarse 

 network, called the reticulum, sometimes separates next the trunk ; 

 they are usually either pinnated or fan-shaped, but are occasionally 

 nearly split in two ; their veins are parallel, the spaces between them 

 plaited, and the whole size sometimes very great, as in the Fan-Palm, 

 in which specimens have been seen as much as 18 or 20 feet in 

 breadth. [CORYPHA.] 



The flowers appear in panicled spikes from the inside of hard dry 

 spatbes, which are often boat-shaped, and although small, they are 

 sometimes so extremely numerous that each panicle will weigh many 

 pounds. They are generally hermaphrodite, but often monoecious, 

 dioecious, or polygamous. The calyx and corolla consist each of three 

 pieces, which are either distinct or more or less united. The stamens 

 vary in number, from 3 to a large multiple of that number, and bear 

 2-celled linear anthers which open along their inner face. The ovary 

 consist* of 3 carpels, which are sometimes distinct, sometimes con- 

 solidated, and occasionally in part abortive, so that the ovary is only 

 1 -celled. The ovaries are almost always solitary, and erect in each 

 cell, but sometimes two are present, which in that case stand side by 

 side ; they are orthotropous in some genera and anatropous in others. 

 The styles are very short, the stigmas simple. 



The fruit varies extremely in its consistence and appearance. Some- 

 times it is 3-celled, often 1 -celled ; in such species as the Cocoa-Nut it 

 is a kind of drupe covered by a coarse fibrous rind ; in others it is a 

 soft sweet eatable pericarp, as in the date ; in others its surface is 

 broken Uf into lozenge-shaped spaces, as in the Sagus, whose fruit 

 looks as if covered with scale-armour. The seed is single, either solid 

 or hollow, and consist* principally of albumen of a fleshy, oily, horny, 

 or cartilaginous texture, within which is lodged a very small cylin- 

 drical embryo at some part of the surface distant from the hilurn. 



Palms appear to prefer a soil in some measure salt, although many 

 ipecies are inhabitants altogether of inland districts and even of high 



HAT. mtr. DIV. vou iv. 



mountains. Their geographical limits appear to be within 36 N. lat. 

 in America, 44 N. lat. in Europe, 34 N. lat. in Asia, and 38 S. lat. 

 in the southern hemisphere; and according to Von Martius, their 

 powers of migration are extremely small ; none of them have been 

 able to cross the ocean without the aid of man. Their favourite 

 stations are said to be the banks of rivers and watercourses, and the 

 sea-shore, some species scattered singly and others collected together 

 into large forests. 



There is scarcely a species of this order iu which some useful 

 property is not found. The Cocoa-Nut [Cocos], the Date [PHCENIX], 

 and others are valued for their fruit ; the Fan-Palm and many more 

 for their foliage, whose hardness and durability render it an excellent 

 material for thatching ; the sweet juice of the Palmyra [BoRASsns] 

 when fermented yields wine ; the centre of the Sago-Palm abounds in 

 nutritive starch ; the trunk of the Iriartea or Cerojrylon exudes a 

 valuable vegetable wax [CEROXYLON] ; oil ia expressed in abundance 

 from the Oil-Palm ; an astringent matter resembling dragon's blood ia 

 produced by Calamut Draco ; many of the species contain within 

 their leaves so hard a kind of fibrous matter, that it ia employed 

 instead of needles, or so tough that it is manufactured into cordage ; 

 and finally, their trunks are iu some cases valued for their strength 

 and used as timber, or for their elasticity, or their flexibility, as in the 

 Cane-Palm. [CALAMD?.] 



A cluster of fruit of the Date-Palm (Phanix dactyli/era), with the spathc from 

 which they spring. 1, a separate flower ; 2, the ovary ; 3, a section of the 

 fruit, containing a single Beed, in the middle of whose back is seen a papilla, 

 which indicates the seat of the embryo. 



The number of species is estimated at about 1000, divided into 

 59 genera, distributed through 5 tribes. 



(Martius, Palmarum Pamilia ejutque Genera denub illustrata ; also 

 the Genera and Species Palmarum of the same author; Endlicher, 

 Genera Plantarum ; Lindley, Vegetable Kingdom.) 



PALMACI'TES, a genus of Fossil Plants, from the Coal Formation. 

 (Stern berg.) 



PALMALES. [ENDOGENS.] 



PALMELLACE^E. [Ate-*.] 



PALMI'NA (Gray), a genus of Cirripedia. 



PALMI'PEDES, Cuvier's name for his sixth order of Birds, which 

 is divided into four families: The Divers (Brachypterce); the 

 Longipennet, or Grands Voiliers (Albatrosses, &c.) ; the Totipalmes 

 (Pelicans, &c.); and the Lamelliroitres (Swans, Geese, Ducks, &c.) 

 [DUCKS.] 



PALMIPES, a genus of Star-Fishes belonging to the tribo Goniaa- 

 tcrice and the family Atteriadce. The body is thin, flat, and pentagonal, 

 and covered above and beneath with fasciculated spines; avenues 

 bordered by longitudinal fasciculi of spines ; suckers visceral. The 

 species of this genus are not numerous. 



P. membranaccut, the Bird's-Foot-Sea-Star, is a British species. It 

 has broad ample sub-acute lobes. Colour white, with red rays and 

 border. It is the thinnest and flattest of all its class. It ranges from 

 the Arctic seas to the Mediterranean. 



(Forbes, Ifistory of Britith Star-Fuhes.) 



PALMI'PORA, a genus of Madreporcea. 



PALMS. IPALMACKJ!.] 



PALMULA'RIA, a genus of Polypiaria. 



X 



