252 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



Cundeamar (Porto Rico). See Momordica charantia. 



Curcas purgans Medic. Same as Jatropha curcas. 



Curcuma longa. Turmeric plant. 



Family Zinziberaceae. 



Local names. — Mango (Guam); Arigo (Samoa) ; Thango (Fiji); Olena (Hawaii); 



Dilao (Philippines); Ukon, Kyo-6 (Japan); Azafran (Spanish); YuqUillo 



(Porto Rico). 



A ginger-like, monocotyledonous plant, with long-petioled oblong leaves, rising 



from a fascicle of tuber-like roots, which differ in form, some being globose, others 



long and narrow. The ripe tubers yield the turmeric of commerce. Rootstocks 



perennial, stems annual; flowers in compound spikes with concave bracts; calyx 



tubular, 3-toothed; tube of corolla dilated above, with 5 of its lobes equal, middle 



one of inner row enlarged to a spreading lip; filament petal oid, 3-lobed at top, with 



a 2-spurred anther on the middle lobe; ovary 3-celled, many-ovuled; style filiform; 



stigma 2-lipped, the lips ciliate; capsule globose, membranous, finally 3-valved. 



Flower spikes crowned by a coma of enlarged pink bracts; flower bracts pale gieen, 



ovate; flowers pale yellow; leafy tuft 1.2 to 1.5 meters high. 



This plant is widely spread in Polynesia. It grows wild in Guam, but is little 

 used by the natives. In Fiji, Samoa, and other groups the natives used it to paint 

 their bodies, and in Samoa it is used to paint siapo or bark cloth. In Japan its roots 

 are collected in autumn and a yellow dye (turmeric) prepared from them. They are 

 also used medicinally. 



References: 



Curcuma longa L. Sp. PI. 1: 2. 1753. 

 Custard-apple. See the species of Annona. 

 Custard-apple family. See Annonaceae. 

 Cyanopus pubescens. Same as Vernonia villosa. 

 Cyanotis cristata. See Zygomenes cristata. 



Cyathea mariana Gaudich. Same as Alsophila haenkei. See under Ferns. 

 Cycadaceae. Cycad family. 



The only representative of this family in Guam is Cycas circinalis. For the method 

 of fecundation of the Cycads see p. 71. 

 Cycas circinalis. East Indian Cycas. Plates viii, xiv. 



Family Cycadaceae. 



Local names. — Fadan, Fadang (Guam); Federico (Spanish); Bitogo, Pitogo, 

 Patubo, (Philippines); Madu (Ceylon). 

 A low palm-like tree, with cylindrical trunk and a crown of glossy, fern-like, stiff, 

 thick, pinnate leaves, bearing nuts which in their crude state are poisonous, but after 

 having been macerated in water and cooked are used for food. Trunk clothed with 

 the compacted woody bases of petioles, usually simple but often branching when the 

 head has been cut off, or several new trunks springing up from the stump of an old 

 one which has been cut down, sometimes the trunk bifurcated; besides the true 

 leaves, modified leaves in the form of simple, short, sessile, subulate, w r oolly pro- 

 phylla; true leaves 1.5 to 2.5 meters long, long-petioled; pinnules alternate, 25 to 30 

 cm. long and quite narrow, linear-lanceolate, acuminate, subfalcate, midrib stout 

 beneath, bright green, glabrous; petiole with short, deflexed spines near the base; 

 inflorescence dioecious; the male inflorescence growing in the form of erect, woolly 

 cones consisting of scales bearing globose pollen sacs on their under surface, the cone 

 shortly peduncled and tipped with an upcurved spine; female inflorescence in the 

 center of the crown of leaves, consisting of a tuft of spreading, buff, woolly, pinnately- 

 notched leaves (carpophylls), in the notches of whose margins the naked or uncov- 

 ered ovules are placed; carpophylls about 30 cm. long; ovules 3 to 5 pairs, borne 



