PLANTS. 347 



The fruit is either oleaginous or pulpy, like our summer 

 fruits, therefore not solid enough to furnish every day food. 

 The tapping of the trees for sake of the sap, also mostly 

 takes away their life ; procuring sago from the trunk of the 

 Palm sagus, E. India, found growing in .the Mauritius, 

 and said to contain a large quantity of that article, is 

 followed by the same consequences. The accounts of the 

 extreme fruitfulness of the palm, given by travelers, are 

 greatly exaggerated, as any one who travels in their 

 native region, unprovided with a supply of solid food, 

 will find out, the stomach refusing to be satisfied solely 

 with its produce. Nevertheless, the palm family, in its 

 numerous varieties, is eminently useful, affording food, 

 raiment, wine, oil, wax, flour, sugar, thread, weapons, 

 habitations, and utensils. Although there are many 

 genera of this race, we shall only mention two or three. 



The Date Tree (Phoenix dactylifera), the leaves of 

 which are the palms of Scripture. A native of northern 

 Africa, endures the climate of the opposite shores of the 

 Mediterranean, and the Palmetto (Chamserops palmetto), 

 the only arborescent species of the United States. One 

 or two low palms with a creeping caudex (dwarf palmet- 

 toes) are found from Florida to North Carolina.* 



The Sayo Palm (Sagus rumphii) is a large tree, al- 

 though it does not measure more than thirty feet ; leaves 

 pinnate with large segments ; leaf-stalks spiny. Of slow 

 growth, the sago palm remains a naked shrub for a long 



* The Palmacese are perhaps not surpassed by any other order in 

 point of usefulness. The leaves are used for thatching, making hats, 

 mats, baskets, fences, for torches, and for writing upon ; the stalk and 

 midrib for oars ; their ashes yield an abundance of potash; the juice 

 of the flowers and stems, replete with sugar, is fermented into a kind 

 of wiue or distilled into Arrack; from its spathes, as from some othei 



