THE CARNAUBA PALM. 



277 



are the favourite food of elephants. The fruit, which is about the 

 size of a plum, has a thin yellow rind, very acrid, and if applied 

 to the tongue will produce a burning sensation. Hence the specific 

 name of the tree. The seeds are used by Mahomedans as beads. 



Another misnamed sago palm is the Cycas revoluta, Willd., a 

 native of Japan. It is in that empire grown in plantations around 

 the houses. The seeds are eaten, and an inferior kind of sago 

 made from the central stem, whence it has received the name of sago 

 palm, although the true, sago, as we have seen, is the product of the 

 Sag Its Mum^Mi palm. 



Sago is easily obtained from the interior part or trunks of these 

 trees. The process consists in pounding the spongy or cellular tex- 

 ture of the stem — sometimes erroneously called the pith — and wash- 

 ing it with water, which is strained, to separate the ligneous fibres 

 from the fecula. Sago is grained by moistening the flour and pass- 

 ing it thi-ough a sieve into a shallow iron pot that is suspended over 

 a fire, by which means it assumes a globular form. In consequence 

 of being half baked dui'ing the process of granulation, it may be kept 

 a long time without undergoing a chemical change. 



According to Dr. Hamilton, a kind of sago flour is prepared from 

 the nuts of Cycas drcinnalis, which is much used by the poorer 

 classes of natives and forest tribes of Malabar and Cochin. The nuts 

 are di'ied in the sun for about a month, pounded in a mortar, and the 

 kernel made into flour. 



The Carnauba Palm. — This Brazilian palm (the Gopernicia cerifera, 

 Mart.) is but little known beyond the locality where it growls, but its 

 many useful products demand for it a more extended notice. It is 

 most extensively found in the province of Ceara, although it is met 

 with in several others of the northern districts of Brazil, either 

 isolated or aggregated in immense forests. The stem (stipe), com- 

 pletely round and straight, attains the height of 48 feet, and a 

 thickness ranging between one foot and one foot and a half in cir- 

 cumference. The upper part of the stem contains a medullary 

 substance (parenchyma), which gives forth the leaves. The terminal 

 bud (palmetto, or cabbage palm) furnishes a delicate and substantial 

 food. In springing from the head of the stem, the leaves, to the 

 number of six or eight, cross each other perpendicularly, united 

 together by a mastic or coating which holds them firmly together. 

 The petioles remain separate, but the leaves re-unite at the top and 

 form a round fringed body. The interior of the young groups of 

 leaves is clear yellow. At this stage of their development the leaves 

 transude a dry pulverulent ash-coloiu'ed substance, which covers their 

 interior surface and exhales a particular but agreeable odour. This 

 substance is a vegetable wax ; it is detached from the leaves by the 

 least shock when they begin to open, but when the fan is expanded, 

 the simple movement produced by the wind is sufficient to cause this 

 powdery substance to disappear. The carnauba palm delights in dry 

 localities, or, at least, ground which remains dry the greater part of 

 the year ; and yet it will stand perfectly the prolonged inundations 

 of water, provided that they do Hot cover completely the whole lower 



