THE BOTANICAL GALLERY. 229 



ductions of the vegetable kingdom employed in 

 medicine or the arts. 



The two first on the right, towards the win- 

 dow, are appropriated to the fruit of the palms 

 and other monocotyledon vegetables. Here are 

 seen beautiful cocoa-nuts of the Maldives (1), one 

 with four lobes and another enveloped in its 

 husk, with male catkins of the same tree of the 

 size of a man's arm ; the fruit of the do am or 

 palm-tree of Thebais; of different species of 

 cocoa-tree ; of the beautiful screwpine of India., 

 pandanus ; of the lontarus, the xanthorrea resi- 

 nosa, the cycas, and the nelumbo ; a large speci- 

 men of the maripciy etc. The two following 

 compartments contain the fruits of the laurel 

 family, among which may be noticed the nutmeg 

 with its mace ; and other species not less curious, 

 employed in domestic economy. Next comes the 

 fruit of the different species of banksia, which 

 was purchased in England after serving for the 

 beautiful figures of White's Yoyage to New South 



(1) This fruit was anciently so called from its being found floating 

 on the sea near the Maldives, the sovereign of which claimed it as his 

 property. It was fashioned into vases of great price, and the wildest 

 conjectures were formed as to its origin. In 1768 Commerson dis- 

 covered the tree that produces it, in the SccheUe or Mahe Islands, and 

 named it Lodoicea. M. de la Billaidiere has given a description of 

 it in the Annals of the Museum, vol. ix. made on the spot by M.Lillet, 

 to which he has added his own observations : he retained the namr 

 Laodo'icea, adding the epithet Scrheifarum. 



