493 



EL.-EIS. 



EL^EODENDRON. 



491 



atmosphere with a delicious perfume, the source of which is not 

 readily discovered by the passer-by. The genera comprising this 

 order are El<ragnus, Hippophae, Conuleum, and S/tepherdia. They 

 embrace about 30 species. 



ELjEIS, a genus of Palms, so named from Elaia, the Olive-Tree, 

 because an oil is yielded by the fruit of its principal if not only 

 species. This is Elceit Guineemii, or Oil-Palm, Maba of the natives 

 of the Congo. It is common all along the western coast of Africa. 

 The tree is monoecious, as we are informed that both male and female 

 spadices were obtained from a single plant cut down by Professor 

 Smith. (Brown, in Tuckey's ' Congo.') The stem is tall, about ten 

 inches in diameter, rough, and bristling with the persistent bases of 

 the petioles, of which the margins, as in recent leaves, are fringed 

 with spines. The leaves are pinnate, about 15 feet in length, with 

 two rows of sword-shaped leaflets, each 1 8 inches long. The fruit is 

 ovoid, about the size of a pigeon's egg, with its outer fleshy covering 

 of a golden yellow colour ; and like that of the section Cocoin(t, to 

 which it belongs, and analogous to the cocoa-nut, has the foramina of 

 its putamen at the apex, and not at the base, as represented by 

 Gicrtner and others. 



Mr. Brown has observed it as remarkable that Cocoi Indica and 

 this palm, which is universally, and he believes justly, considered as 

 having been imported into the West India colonies from the west 

 coast of Africa, should be the only two species of an extensive and 

 very natural section of palms that are not confined to America. The 

 Eltfii occidentals of Swartz, the Thatch-Tree of Brown's ' Jamaica,' 

 and the Avoira of Aublet, are probably all identical with the Maba, 

 or Oil-Palm, of the African coast. 



The oil is obtained by bruising the fleshy part of the fruit (and not 

 the kernel as sometimes stated), and subjecting the bruised paste to 

 boiling water in wooden mortars ; an oil of an orange-yellow colour 

 separates, which concretes when cool to the consistence of butter, and 

 has when fresh the smell of violets or of the root of Florentine iris, 

 with a very slightly sweetish taste. The oil is used by the Africans in 

 cookery and for anointing the body. It forms a considerable article 

 of commerce to Europe, where it U chiefly employed in perfumery 

 and medicine. C'ocot butyracta (which is referred by Kunth to the 

 genus Elrris) is considered by the Edinburgh College to be the plant 

 which yields palm-oil. 



Mr. Brown (Tuckey's 'Congo,' Appendix, p. 456) states, "It is 

 probable that Alfimna, oleifera of Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth 

 belongs to Elceii, and possibly may not even differ from the African 



f-a 



7 



species. To this the above authors in the 'Synopsis Plant .^Equinoct." 

 reply, that in EUtit, according to the description of Jaccjuin, both the 

 floral envelopes are sexifid, while in Alfomia they are trifid. If this 



moreover be the same as the corozo of Jacquin, another essential 

 difference may be observed in the structure of the fruit of the two 

 plants, the nut in Elceis being perforated at the apex, while the 

 corozo haa its nut perforated with three foramina at its base ;" but 

 this might have been inverted, as that of Elteis was by Gsertuer. 

 Humboldt and Bonpland moreover found Alfonsia oleifera always 

 growing wild, while Elceis Guineensis, as they state, is never found 

 except in a cultivated state out of Africa. The compressed nut of 

 the Alfonsia, like that of the cocoa-nut, is described as yielding an 

 oil, which is obtained by boiling in water the Manteca del Corozo ; it 

 is described as a liquid fat employed for ordinary lamps as well as 

 those of churches. 



EL.'EOCARPA'CEyE, Eleocarps, a natural order of chiefly Indian 

 Trees, having a strong botanical resemblance to our European 

 Lindens, but differing in having fringed petals, and anthers opening 

 by two pores at the apex. 



In the Indian genera, the nuts, cleared of the soft pulp or flesh that 

 covers them, are curiously sculptured, and being bony and taking a 

 fine polish they are frequently set in gold and strung into necklaces. 

 The nuts of Ganitrus sphcericua, a middle-sized tree, common in 

 various parts of India, as well as the Malay Archipelago, and those 

 of Menocera tulierculata, from the forests of Travancore, are what are 

 principally used for this purpose. The fruits of Elteocarpus terratus, 

 which are very much like olives when ripe, are said by Roxburgh to 

 be pickled or dried and used in their curries by the natives of India. 

 E. cyaneia has pure white beautifully-fringed petals, and is one of the 

 most ornamental plants of Australia. Lindley, in his ' Vegetable 

 Kingdom,' places this order as a sub-order or division of Tiliacece. 



A flowering shoot of Elaocarpnx cyatieitl. 



1, a magnified flower; 2, a petal ; 3, the stamens; 4, a ripe fruit; 5, the 

 same cut away to show the wrinkled seed. 



EL^EOCOCCA. [EuFHORBiACE.*:.] 



EL/EODENDKON (from t\aia, an olive, and fivtyov, a tree), a 

 genus of Plants belonging to the natural order CJaitracece. It has a 

 5-pnrted calyx ; 5 expanding linear-oblong petals ; a 5-angled very 

 thick fleshy disc ; 5 anthers inserted into the margin of the disc ; the 

 filaments at length recurved ; anthers with a thick connective, 

 roundish, opening longitudinally ; the ovary immersed in the disc, 

 2-celled ; the ovules 2 in each cell ; the style short, conical ; the 

 stigma simple, obtuse ; the fruit drupaceous, dry, or pulpy ; the nut 

 1-2-celled ; the seeds usually solitary, with a membranaceous or 

 spongy integument erect. The species are small trees with opposite 

 entire glabrous leaves. 



E, glaucum has elliptical serrated leaves, hardly three times longer 

 than the petioles ; the cymes loose, nearly the length of the leaves ; 

 the flowers pentaudrous. It is a small tree, about 14 feet in height 



