424 VEGETATION. 



As you approach a Dyak Village, the splendour of 

 tropical vegetation cannot fail to impress the visitor. 

 The magnificent Maize (Zea mays] springs up often in 

 large and vivid patches ; the Bird's-eye Pepper and 

 Turmeric are found growing like common weeds. The 

 Piper Betle* the leaf of which is chewed with ripe or 

 green pieces of the nut of Areca oleracea, is a graceful, 

 pretty looking plant, particularly when loaded with long 

 spikes of fruit. Some individuals appear however, never to 

 have fruit, and are probably barren or males. The Piper 

 Betle either runs like a creeper along the ground, or 

 clings to the trunks of trees in its vicinity. Sometimes 

 you will see it climbing up poles or the stems of the 

 Papyia and Areca palms in little patches which are 

 carefully guarded by rude palisades, and great pains taken 

 by attention to irrigation, &c. to insure a good flavour in 

 the leaves. Crawfurd says that "in the northern parts 

 of Hindostan it is grown almost with as much difficulty 

 as the plants of warm regions in our hot-houses." It is 

 a curious circumstance that the use of the Sirih leaf 

 diminishes perspiration, while that of the Ava (Piper 

 metliysticum} is used among the Society Islands to produce 

 excessive diaphoresis for the cure of disease. The Durion 

 (Durio Zibetliinus) and Mangustan (Garcinia Mangostana) 

 will be seen in some campongs amid whole groves of 

 broad-leaved Plantains (Musa paradisiaca), graceful 

 Cocoa-nuts (Cocos nucifera), elegant Palmyras (Borasms 



* So written by Linnaeus (Sp, Plant 40.) Mr. Crawfurd has Piper 

 Betel, although he observes (Ind. Arch. p. 403) that "the word adopted 

 in the European languages is from the Telinga, in which it is indifferently 

 pronounced Betle or Bctre." 



