BOTANY. 343 



PEXTANDRIA DIGYNIA. 



Hydrocotyle Sp. Water Navel-wort. Inhabits the 

 stony embankments of taro-patches. 



Maui, Sandwich Isles ; native name apoe. 



A triplex portulacoides. California. 



Chenopodium ambrosioides. Caucalis infesta. St. 

 Helena. 



HEXANDBIA. MONOGYNIA. 



Dracaena terminalis. This plant is most commonly 

 seen of no greater height than four or five feet, and 

 bearing erect and bushy foliage on a very short stalk ; 

 but it sometimes attains the altitude of ten or twelve 

 feet, and carries its foliage on the summit of a slender 

 naked trunk. The leaves are long, smooth, and lan- 

 ceolate; they are at first of a dark-green, but soon 

 change to a uniform yellow colour, when they are 

 much admired by the natives as an ornament for the 

 head or waist. The flower bears some resemblance to 

 that of the male Pandanus. The root has the form and 

 colour of a parsnip, but is very large, and of a dense 

 woody texture ; when baked or roasted it becomes soft, 

 brown, and fibrous, and contains a large quantity of 

 saccharine fluid, which has the appearance of molasses, 

 and is equally sweet. This syrup concretes, by boiling, 

 into a coarse candy, Vikzjagery, though all attempts to 

 granulate it and produce a perfect sugar have failed. 



The Sandwich Islanders use the baked root to pre- 

 pare a wash for the distillation of a kind of whisky. 

 Foreign residents at Oahu find the plant serviceable 

 as quick-set fences for their cultivated lands; and 



