SAGO. 173 



tirely clothed with pale brown woolly down : 

 their lower part a flattish stalk; their middle 

 bearing on each margin a row of three or 

 four sessile drupce ; their extremity dilated 

 into a pinnatifid, or rather palmate, many- 

 fingered leaf, whose lobes were generally 

 curved inwards, and tipped with a spine as 

 before mentioned. When wounded, these 

 fronds distilled a great quantity of thick, clear, 

 insipid mucilage, which soon hardened into a 

 substance resembling gum tragacanth, in 

 which probably resides the nutritive quality 

 for which this palm is so celebrated in the 

 Flora Japonica. We are told that a very small 

 morsel of the pith of its stem is sufficient to 

 sustain life a long time, and on that account 

 it is jealously preserved for the use of the 

 Japanese army. The drupce are also said to 

 be used as food. We roasted some, and 

 found in their kernels the flavour of chesnuts, 

 with less sweetness and a more watery con- 

 sistency. Each drupa is elliptical, or some- 

 what obovate, a little compressed, tipped 

 with a minute rigid point formed of the per- 

 manent stigma, which is umbilicated at its 

 summit. The outer coat is coriaceous, bright 

 orange red, clothed with woolly down, which 

 easily rubs off. This coat is not eatable. 



