PALM AND AMAKYLLIS TRIBES. 53 



other species of palms, is known in India as Toddy, 

 or Palm wine, and has grateful and cooling pro- 

 perties. The pith of some palms is made into 

 bread by the natives, and is boiled into thick gruel 

 resembling sago. The true Sago Palm is so rich 

 in that substance that each tree is computed to 

 yield from 600 to 800 Ibs. Only a comparatively 

 small number of the palms have eatable fruit. 

 Besides the Cocoa-nut, there is the Date Palm,* 

 which furnishes the chief food of desert tribes, the 

 Doom Palm,f called in Egypt the Gingerbread 

 Tree, owing to its dark-brown mealy rind, and a 

 few others of small importance. Some of those 

 palms from whose trunks sugar and sago are ob- 

 tained have, nevertheless, exceedingly acrid fruit, 

 exciting inflammation in the mouth. 



" The tribes immediately above palms are chiefly 

 floating or water-plants, and most of them foreign : 

 a few families, however, come with the familiar 

 names of " frog-bit," J " water-soldier," &c. Near 

 these are the pine-apple and agave, or Ameri- 

 can aloe ; the latter belonging to the tribe || which 

 contains our snowdrop and daffodil." 



* Phoenix dactylifera. f Hyplixne thebaica. J Hydrocharid. 

 Stratiotes. || The Amaryllis tribe. 



