STURTEVANT S NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 357 



The flour is called yuruma and is very agreeable to the taste, resembling cassava bread 

 rather than the sago of India. From the juice, a slightly acid and extremely refreshing 

 liquor is fermented. The ripe fruit contains first a rich, pulpy nut and last a hard core. 

 Bates ' says the fruit is a common article of food, although the pulp is sour and unpalatable, 

 at least to European tastes. It is boiled and then eaten with farina. This is the miriti. 

 or ita, palm of Brazil; the sago-like flour is called ipuruma.^ 



M. vinifera Mart, wine palm. 



Brazil. This palm, says Gardner,' produces a great number of nuts about the size 

 of an egg, covered with rhomboidal scales arranged in a spiral. Between these scales 

 and the albuminous substance of the nut, there exists an oily pulp of a reddish color, 

 which the inhabitants of Crato boil with sugar and make into a sweetmeat. In Piauhy, 

 they prepare from this pulp an emulsion, which, when sweetened with sugar, forms a very 

 palatable beverage, but if much used is said to tinge the skin a yellowish color. The juice 

 of the stem also forms a very agreeable drink. 



Maximiliana regia Mart. Palmae. cucurite palm, inaja palm. 



Brazil. This is the inaja palm of the Rio Negro * and the cuctuite palm of Gmana.* 

 The terminal leaf-bud furnishes a most delicious cabbage, says Seemann,^ and the fruit 

 is eaten by the Indians. Brown ' says the nuts are covered with a yellow, juicy pulp, 

 which is sweet and pleasant to the taste. The outer husk of the fruit, says A. Smith,* 

 yields a kind of saline flour used by the natives for seasoning their food. 



Medeola virginica Linn. Liliaceae. Indian cucumber. 



Northeast America. The roots are eaten by the Indians, according to Pursh. ' Cutler '" 

 says the roots are esculent and of an agreeable taste. Gray " says the tuberous, white 

 rootstock has a taste like the cucumber. 



Medicago denticiilata Willd. Leguminosae. bur clover, shanghai trefoil. 



North temperate region of the Old World. A fine, broad-leaved variety of this plant 

 was found by Fortune to be much used by the Chinese as a winter vegetable.'^ 



M. lupulina Linn, black medick. nonesuch. 



North temperate region of the Old World; nattiralized in places in America. In 

 southern California, its seeds are much relished by the Indians." 



> Bates, H. W. Nat. Amaz. Humboldt Liftr. Sci. 647. 1879-80. 

 Seemann, B. Pop. Hist. Palms 252, 253. 1856. 

 'Gardner, G. Trav. Braz. 171, 172. 1849. 



* Agassiz 7oMr. Broz. 338. 1868. 



Brown, C. B. Camp Life Brit. Guiana 180. 1877. 



Seemann, B. Pop. Hist. Palms 261, 262. 1856. 



' Brown, C. B. Camp Life Brit. Guiana 180. 1877. 



Smith, A. Treas. Bol. 2:726. 1870. 



Pursh, F. Fl. Amer. Septent. 1:244. 1814. 

 ' Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 808. 1879. 

 "Gray, A. iMan. Bot. $24. 1868. 

 "Card. Chron. 815. 1844. 

 " U. S. D. A. Rpt. 419. 1870. 



