244 MEDICINAL PLANTS OF JAMAICA. 



or cradle for Negro children ; and, when cut up, makes excel- 

 lent splints for fractures. On the inner side of every tender foot- 

 stalk are tender pellicles, which, when dried, make a writing 

 paper. The heart is made into pickles, or, when boiled, is 

 served up at table. The trunks serve as gutterings ; the pith 

 makes a sort of sago ; and the nuts yield oil by decoction. 



Of all trees in the universe, riiis is the most beautiful, and 

 perhaps the tallest. I have seen one an hundred and seventy 

 feet high, and have heard of others still taller. 



(We have many kinds of palm trees in Jamaica, but none 

 so beautiful as the cabbage-tree. It often grows 120 feet 

 high ; the trunk smooth, and surprisingly straight. The 

 wood of the cabbage-tree is very hard, but so thin that it is 

 only fit for walking sticks, or gun ram-rods. In the middle 

 is a woody fibrous pith, which resembles sago. 



At the top of the trunk it puts forth long green spathas > 

 which open when full grown. They contain finely branched 

 panicles, with innumerable blue flowers, which have eight 

 stamina. The berry is oblong, containing a hard woody 

 kernel. 



The leaves are long, spreading, pinnated, and very strong 

 Their petioles unite with a green trunk, about six feet in 

 length, from whence the blossoms spring ; so that this part is 

 foliaceous. When the leaves are old they strip off, and the 

 part that envelopes this green trunk appears woody like deal. 

 AVhen the leaves are stripped off green, we strip off the inside 

 skin of each, which, when dry, looks like vellum ; this bears 

 ink very well on one side, on the other it seems greasy. From 

 one trunk we can procure twenty large sheets. This seems 

 to be one of the papyri of the ancients. 



In the middle of the green trunk is a tender white heart, 

 which, when boiled, is eaten like cabbage or turnips.^) 



90. The Sago Palm. 

 This valuable palm-tree was presented to the island by 



