226 DICTIONARY OF POPULAR NAMES JAGGERY 



fruit family (Artocarpacese), native of tlie Indian and Malayan 

 Archipelagoes, where it is extensively grown for the sake of the 

 fleshy portion of the fruit. It is not so palatable to Europeans 

 as the bread-fruit; it is about the size of a large vegetable 

 marrow, often from 12 to 18 inches in length, and 6 to 8 inches 

 in diameter ; its nuts, which are the true fruits, are roasted and 

 eaten. The taste of these has been compared to the melon and 

 pine -apple combined, but to some the smell is anything but 

 inviting. 



Jaggery Sugar. {See Palm Wine.) 



Jagua Palm, the native name for Maximiliana regia, a 

 noble wing-leaved palm, native of jSTorthern Brazil and the 

 regions of the head -waters of the Orinoco and Amazon. It 

 attains a height of 100 feet, with a head of leaves each 30 

 feet in length. Its inflorescence consists of a dense bunch of 

 small flowers contained in a spathe 5 feet in length, and when 

 open 2 feet wide, much resembling a boat with a long point like 

 a bowsprit. These spathes when dry are hard and rigid, and 

 used for a variety of domestic purposes by the Indians, such 

 as nursing cradles, baskets, and water-vessels. A palm called 

 Inaja by the Indians appears to be the same species as the 

 Jagua. 



Jalap, a well-known purgative medicine, obtained from the 

 tuberous roots of Exogonium imrga, a climber of the Bindweed 

 family (Convolvulacese), native of the mountainous regions 

 of Mexico near Xalapa. hence the name Jalap. Although it has 

 been long prescribed as a purgative medicine under the name of 

 Jalap, its botanical source was not definitely ascertained till 

 about 1830 ; its tuberous roots are roundish and of variable size, 

 the largest being about the size of an orange and of a dark 

 colour; they contain a resinous principle, which is highly 

 purgative. Jalap of inferior qualities is in different countries 

 obtained from many species of Iijomma, an extensive genus of 

 Bindweeds. Ipomcea Orizctbensis furnishes what is called Jalap 

 tops, Orizaba root, or Male Jalap, imported from Mexico as 

 a substitute for true Jalap. /. tuherosa, known in Jamaica as 



