IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap. 



the inflorescence in the shape of a narrow cone, often six or seven 

 feet high. 



The fecula which is extracted from the Kadjattao is of a 

 quality superior to that produced by the common sago palm. 

 Even the pollen, which has the aspect of a violet-coloured meal, 

 is utilised, being eaten as a condiment both with rice and sago. 1 

 The flowers of the Eugeissonia are formed in such a manner as to 

 offer an efficient protection to the pollen, which, on account of 

 its nutritious properties, might be sought after by different animals 

 and thus destroyed before the flowers open. Indeed, the flowers 

 of Eugeissonia utilis hardly come up to the usual conception of 

 a flower at all. They are very slender, but as much as three inches 

 and a half in length, and their petals are extremely hard and of 

 a dark funereal colour, much resembling leather. The corolla 

 forms a sheath to the stamens of great toughness, and at the same 

 time does not attract the attention of animals. 



The rude cultivation of the Kadjattao appears to me to be 

 a most instructive instance of how plants useful to man have 

 come to be reduced to a state of domesticity or cultivation. If 

 primitive inhabitants of the forest happened to find a locality 

 where there grew in abundance a plant from which, with a slight 

 amount of labour, they could extract a quantity of food, they would 

 certainly take advantage of the boon Nature offered them, and 

 would build their rude shelters or huts at that spot, and settle 

 there as long as these advantages continued. Meanwhile the 

 seeds of the plant which had been so useful to them would become 

 scattered round their huts, where, in the rich soil necessarily 

 accumulated, these young plants of the species would grow up 

 under most favourable conditions, and would bear better fruit 

 and yield food substance in greater abundance than the forest 

 grown specimens. Thus a system of mutualism would be initiated 

 between Man and the species useful to him. The hypothesis that 

 Man may have been, so to say, the creator of those domestic plants 

 and animals which are no longer found in a wild state, and which 

 cannot subsist without his protection, implies the further hypo- 

 thesis that such plants and animals became associated with Man 

 at a time when there was still a wide field open to variation, and 

 when the plasmative force was yet active. This further renders 

 necessary the acceptance of the hj^pothesis that Man — possessed 

 of intelligence nearly on a par with that with which he is at present 

 endowed — existed at a time far more remote than that which is 

 generally admitted. For my part, I certainly see no objection 

 in assigning to man an antiquity at least equal to that of other 



1 Sir J. Hooker tells us that the inhabitants of New Zealand make bread 

 with the pollen of Typha (cf. Flora Novce-Zelandi<z, i. p. 238). I do not 

 remember any other cases of pollen being used as food. 



308 



