11. T. LOWE — ESUITS AND VEGETABLES OF MADEIRA, ETC. 185 



there in gardens or near houses, though little or no use is now 

 made of its medicinal gum (Dragon's-blood). The globose yellow 

 fruit, the size of a cherry or marble, produced in vast terminal 

 panicles, is sweetish but nauseous, and only sometimes eaten by 

 children. 



PaLMACEjE. 



158. Piicexix dacttlieeea L. The Date-Palm. produces occa- 

 sionally ripe fruit in Madeira of tolerable quality, but the tree is 

 rare. In the Canaries, especially in the north of Tenerife and 

 south of Grand Canary, it is far more common, and in Gomera its 

 fruit is excellent and plentiful. In the Cape Yerdes the tree is 

 met with only here and there, being almost entirely super- 

 seded by 



159. Cocos nuclteuaL. (the Cocoa-nut), which flourishes per- 

 fectly not only near the sea but running up the valleys for several 

 miles to an elevation of 2000 feet, in St. Iago, producing most 

 abundantly. 



In the Canaries or Madeira it barely maintains its existence 

 above six or seven years, not acquiring a stem or rising to a height 

 of more than 8 or 10 feet, and never fruiting, 



ArACEyE. 



160. Colocasia antiquoeijm Schott. This plant, the Inhame 

 of the Portuguese, affords in Madeira to the common people a 

 larger and more regular supply of food than any other ; and it is 

 thus perhaps the most widely cultivated and important of their 

 esculents. It flourishes equally when grown in dry soil, in rows 

 alternately with cabbages or French beans (Pliaseolus) , and when 

 planted by itself in what seems its more natural locality, artificial 

 marshes formed in every little spot available in the beds of ravines 

 by damming up or partially diverting the torrents. When the 

 vertical rhizome has grown to the length of 6 or 8 inches and dia- 

 meter of 2 or 3 inches, the whole plant is dug up, and the lower 

 part of the rhizome cut off one or two inches below the crown. 

 This lower part is the esculent. The upper part or crown is then 

 replanted in trenches with the leaves close cropped off, and bedded 

 in a quantity of litter (fresh grass, broom-cuttings, twigs, and 

 leaves of trees or even fern, Pteris aqiiilina L.), more to serve 

 for shelter from evaporation than for manure. Thus a succession- 

 crop is kept up throughout most part of the year. The leaves 

 are gathered at all times for feeding pigs, which devour greedily 



