PALM OIL. 261 



Palm Oil. — Principally produced from the fruit of the 

 Palm Mais Guineensis. (Nat. Ord. Palmacea.) (Plate 

 VIII. fig. 42.) It is also produced by another species 

 of Mais, jE. melanococca, 



The fruit of the Mais Guineensis forms an immense head, 

 resembling a monstrous pine-apple; it consists of a great 

 number of drupes of a bright orange-yellow colour ; these 

 drupes have a thin external skin (epicarp), through which 

 the yellow oily pulp (sarcocarp) is seen ; in this is the hard 

 stone (endocarp), which occupies about one-fourth of the 

 whole bulk of the drupe, the sarcocarp constituting nearly 

 all the remaining portion, of which two-thirds are oil or 

 palm butter. 



Palm oil is of a beautiful deep orange-yellow colour, be- 

 coming lighter by exposure to the air and light ; it has a 

 sweet violet odour when fresh. Besides oleine, it consists 

 of a distinct principle called palmitine, taking the place of 

 ordinary stearine, of which probably it is only a variety. 



When we reflect that palm oil is used in Africa as butter 

 by the natives, over an immense and thickly populated 

 portion of that continent, the quantity imported into this 

 country is really astounding, and gives us an idea of the 

 prolific nature of these palms, greater than we could other- 



