BOTANY. 



(called by the Tahitians ivi haari y or bone of the cocoa- 

 nut,) scraped until it is smooth and almost transparent, 

 serves as the natives 5 drinking cup ; while the entire 

 shell of an old nut, highly polished, perforated at one 

 extremity, and bound with cinnet, is his water-bottle. 

 The wood of the cocoa-nut tree is hard but brittle ; it 

 has a red-yellow colour; and is marked with short, 

 irregular, and vertical black lines, of very dense texture ; 

 it has, when polished, a handsome appearance, and 

 is sometimes used in England for ornamental pur- 

 poses, under the name of " porcupine wood." 



MONCECIA. HEPTANDRIA. 



Dracontium polyphyllum. The Society Islanders 

 regard this as the most poisonous of their indigenous 

 plants. 



Society Isles ; native name teve. Marquesas. 



MONCECIA. ENNEANDBIA. 



Areca catechu. Areka-nut Palm. This palm bears 

 a close resemblance to the cocoa-nut tree ; but its leaves 

 are shorter, of a livelier green colour, and, being more 

 delicately divided into leaflets, have a more plumy ap- 

 pearance. The trunk is straight and slender, rises to the 

 height of about forty feet, and is marked with rings, 

 denoting the former insertion of leaves. The nuts 

 hang in clusters from the base of the leaves, as well as 

 from some lower portions of the bare trunk they are 

 about the size of a walnut, globular, smooth, and, when 

 ripe, of a yellow-red colour. Each seed-vessel retains 

 a calyx composed of six scaly leaves, and encloses within 

 its thick husk, a single solid brown seed, (the Betel-nut 

 of commerce,) of rounded or conical form, and its inte- 

 rior mottled red and white. It is the favourite masti- 



