SECT.'lI 



PHANEROGAMIA 



■473 



the other hand, Palms in a wild or uncultivated state, and displaying a great 

 variety of form and size, constitute the most characteristic feature of nearly all 

 tropical countries. There the Coco-nut Palm, Cocos nucifera, the most important 

 economic plant of the Palm family, is found growing everywhere in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the coast, either solitary or gregariously, in forests. The cocoa-nut 

 (Fig. 411) is a gigantic drupe with a spongy, fibrous exocarp and a hard endocarp ; 

 the single seed consists of a thin seed-coat and a large, hollow fatty endosperm, in 

 which the small embryo is embedded. Areca Catechu, the Betel Palm, towers 

 above all the villages of the East Indies, with its slender, usually straight, lofty 

 stem surmounted by a small crown 

 of emerald -green leaves. Other 

 Palms are cultivated for the sugar 

 or wine they yield, or as orna- 

 mental trees. In the open Savannas, 

 Palms growing singly or in small 

 woods are of frequent occurrence. 

 In the primeval forests, the species 

 with tall stems grow apart from 

 each other, in the midst of an und er- 

 growth of smaller forms, while 

 thorny Palm-lianes twining from 

 tree to tree form an impenetrable 

 jungle. Very few Palms are of 

 special value commercially. In addi- 

 tion to the Coco and Date Palms may 

 be mentioned Elaeis guineensis, the 

 African Oil Palm, the oily meso- 

 carp of whose fruit yields palm-oil ; 

 Phytelephas macrocarpa, of which 

 the hard endosperm is known as 

 vegetable ivory (Fig. 393) ; and 

 Calamus, the stems of which are 

 used as cane or rattan. 



Officinal. — Areca Catechu 

 (East Indies) yields Semen Akeoae ; 

 Cocos nucifera, Oleum Cocos. 



Family Araeeae. — Flowers 

 often GREATLY REDUCED; in- 

 florescence a simple spadix 

 -with a SINGLE usually corol- 

 laceous spathe. Herbs, rarely 

 woody plants, with simple or compound leaves (Figs. 412-414). 



The leaves of the Araeeae are usually divided into stalk and 

 lamina ; they are frequently hastate in shape and generally reticulately 

 veined. The inflorescence, which is characteristic of the family, con- 

 sists of a fleshy spadix, the axis of which frequently terminates in a 

 naked coloured prolongation such as occurs, for example, in Arum 

 maculatum (Figs. 412, 413), where it has the form of a purple club. 

 The enveloping spathe is also often showily coloured ; sometimes 



2 M 



Fig. 412. — Arum maculatum ($ nat. size). — 



POISOiVOUS. 



