62 NUTRITIVE PLANTS. 



Upon removing the large leaves, or branches, which surround the 

 top of the trunk, a little way above the beginning of the green bark, 

 what is called the cabbage is discovered lying in many thin, snow 

 white, brittle flakes, in taste resembling an almond, but sweeter. 

 This substance, which cannot be procured without destroying the 

 tree, is boiled^ and eaten with mutton by the inhabitants of the 

 West Indies, in the same manner as turnips and cabbage are with 

 us. What is called the cabbage flower, grows from that part of 

 the tree where the ash-coloured trunk joins the green part already 

 described. Its first appearance is a green husky spatha, growing 

 to above 20 inches long, and about four broad. As this husky 

 spatha is opening while thus young, the farinaceous yellow seed in 

 embryo, resembling fine sawdust, is very plentifully dispersed 

 among stringy filaments, which answer the use of apices in other 

 more regular flowers : these filaments being cleared of this dust, 

 are pickled, and esteemed among the best pickles either in the 

 West Indies or in Europe. But if this spatha is not cut down and 

 opened whilst thus young; if it be suffered to continue on the tree, 

 till it grows ripe and bursts ; then the inclosed part, which whilst 

 young and tender is fit for pickling, will b\ that time have acquired 

 an additional hardness, become soon after ligneous, grow bushy, 

 consisting of very small leaves, and in time produce a great number 

 of small oval thin- shelled nuts, about the size of unhusked coffee 

 berries : these, being planted, produce young cabbage trees. The 

 sockets or grooves, formed by the broad part of the footslalks of 

 the branches, are used by the negroes as cradles for their children. 

 On the inner side of the very young footstalks are tender pelicles, 

 which when dried, it is said, make a writing paper. The trunks 

 serve as gutterings; the pith makes a sort of sago ; and the nuts 

 yield oil by decoction. In the pith also, after the trees arc felled, 

 there breeds a kind of worm or grub, which is eaten and esteemed 

 a great delicacy by the French of Martinico, St. Domingo, and the 

 adjacent islands. 



3. Areca oryzaeformis. This is a native of Cochin China, Am. 

 boiua, &c. It is a slender elegant palm, and the fruit is used for 

 chewing with the betel leaf as well as that of the first species. 



[Forrest. Linn, Amen, Accident. 



