296 



POPULAE ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



the oak. When first obtained, it is rather hard, but by 

 beating it with mallets it becomes soft, feeling very much 

 like chamois-leather. It is used as tinder, for which it is 

 admirably adapted, and also in surgery as a styptic. One 

 or two other fungi are used for the same purposes, under 

 the name of Amadou. Tolypoms forrmiiarius is the true 

 Amadou : it is used in India, and also by the Laplanders, 

 who place great value upon it as a styptic. 



Vegetable Ivory. — This remarkable substance, which so 

 closely resembles a product of the animal kingdom, is the 

 hardened albumen of the nuts of a species of Palm, JPhyte- 

 leplias macTocarpa, (Plate X. fig. 48. Pig. 49 represents 

 the nut about half the natural size, with the outer shell 

 partly broken; and figure 50 is a section of the same show- 

 ing the relative proportion of the ivory and the position of 

 a small cavity w^hich alw^ays exists in the centre.) These 

 nuts in commerce usually go by the name of Corosso nuts. 

 How this name originated is a mystery, as the Indians call 

 the palm by the names FuUijntnta and Homero ; the native 

 Spaniards call it Palma del Marsil and Marsil vegetal. 

 The nuts are enclosed in large capsules, about twenty inches 

 in circumference, containing many of the seeds or nuts. 

 Owing to the extreme shortness of the cauclex^ or stalk, (rf 



