THE TECHNOLOGIST, 



THE STARCH-PRODUCING PLANTS OP CEYLON. 



BY W. C. ONDAATJE, COLONIAL ASSISTANT-SURGEON. 



Starch is found in a vast number of vegetable products, as grains, peas, 

 tubers, stems of many monocotyledonous plants, and in lichens. The 

 granules of starch are contained in the cellular tissue of plants, and form a 

 nutritive article of diet, besides being used in the arts . In this island, we 

 have a number of plants from wbich starch may be obtained, and which we 

 shall enumerate. But before doing so, it may be as well to describe a 

 simple method by which it may be extracted with much purity. It con- 

 sists in enclosing flour in a muslin bag, and squeezing it fpvith the fingers 

 while submerged in clean water, by which process the starch passes out in a 

 state of white powder and subsides. Two essential constituents of flour 

 are thus separated from each otber ; a viscid substance remains in the bag, 

 which is called gluten, and the white powder deposited is starch. Under 

 the microscope, starch presents the form of a rounded grain, the size and 

 shape of which differ in different plants, and in the same plant at different 

 times, and from different parts of the same plant. Of plants yielding 

 starch we have — 



1. The Indian Arrow-root, which is the fecula in the rhizomata of 

 several species of the Marantacese. In the West Indies it is obtained from 

 the Maranta arundbtacea ; also from Carina ylauca, called " Tous les 

 mois " ; and in the East Indies from Curcuma angustifolia ; also from 

 Maranta ramossissbna in Silhet. 



2. The Bread-fruit (Artocarpus incisa), which yields a large quantity of 

 starch* 



3. The sweet potato {Batatas edulis, Choisy.) 



4. The pith or farinaceous part of the trunk of the Caryota urens 

 (Kittule of the Singhalese), which is almost equal to the finest sago. In 

 Assam, the sago of this palm is much used. 



Meal sago, from the Jaggery palm, is deserving of attention as an article 

 of diet, being found in the districts of Badulla and Colombo. But a better 

 mode than that known to the natives must be resorted to, to render it 

 clean and pure. As prepared by the natives, it is of a brown colour, mixed 

 with pith and the woody fibre of the stem. A superior article can be 



* See Technologist, vol i, p. 193. 



VOL. II. p 



