194 THE STARCH-PRODUCING PLANTS OF CEYLON. 



manufactured by pounding the pith when fresh, and straining it through 

 cloth in a large vessel containing water. A good deal of astringent matter 

 will be found in the starch, to which it gives a brown colour. This may 

 be removed by mixing the starch with the white of eggs, which precipitates 

 the tannin, and by straining again, the fine, pure starch may be obtained. 

 It will be found more glutinous than common sago. 



In the month of January, during the rainy weather, the kitool abounds 

 with starch, whicb, however, is not found in every tree. 



The natives discover its presence in a tree by the whiteness of its leaves 

 and petiole, also by boring a hole in the stem, and extracting the pith. 

 The Singhalese make use of the flour for food, after boiling it in steam, 

 which changes it to a gum-like mass. To make kitool jelly, dissolve a 

 tea-spoonful of the starch with a little cold water, and pour over it four 

 ounces or two wine-glassfuls of boiling water, and keep stirring till it 

 jellies ; then flavour it with milk and sugar. 



From the seeds of the Nymplicea stellata, the people at Bintenne prepare 

 starch, which they use during times of scarcity. They also use a decoction 

 of the seed in dysentery. The seeds are collected from tanks from June to 

 September. 



5. The Cassava {Janipha Maniliot). " A shrub, 4 to 6 feet high, root large, 

 tuberous, fleshy and white, with a milky, acrid, poisonous juice ; leaves 

 palmate, 5 to 7 parted, smooth, glaucous beneath, segments lanceolate, quite 

 entire ; flowers axillary, racemose, monoecious ; calyx campanulate, 5 

 parted ; petals none ; stamen 10 ; filaments unequal, distinct, arranged 

 round a disk ; style 1 ; stigmas 3, consolidated into a rugose mass. — Andr. 

 de Juss. and Hooker? — ' Bot. Mag.' 3071. There are two varieties of this 

 plant, mamely the Bitter and Sweet Cassava. Through the root of the 

 latter there runs a tough ligneous fibre, not found in the former, which is 

 one mode of distinguishing between them. These two are also regarded 

 as distinct species ; the sweet, called Janipha Lceflingii, the Yuca of the 

 natives, is described with " 5 partite cordate leaves, segments acuminate, 

 very entire, the middle one panduriform ; the other J. Maniliot, their yuca- 

 dulce, has leaves from 5 to 7 partite, glaucous on the under surface ; seg- 

 ments acuminate, very entire." 



The bitter cassava is cultivated for making the tapioca of commerce and 

 cassava bread. The juice is very poisonous, owing to the presence of 

 hydrocyanic acid. By the Kaffirs at Putlam the sweet kind is more largely 

 cultivated and used as food. They also prepare an intoxicating liquor by 

 making the coarsely powdered root ferment with the seed of Corakan 

 (Eleusine coracana), macerated in water, till germination commences. It 

 supplies a vast number of the inhabitants of South America, the "West 

 Indies, and Mexico, with food, and was introduced into this island, in 1792, 

 through the zealous exertion of the Dutch Governor, Van de Graaf, who, by 

 disseminating information widely in the Singhalese and Tamil languages 

 as to the best mode of cultivating the plant, succeeded in making its merits 

 known. 



