S24 
COMMENTARY ON 
phia ; and a report of this circumstance must have led the 
Compiler of the Encyclopedie (vi. 393) to make this a na 
tive of India, especially of Malabar. But having travelled 
much through this latter country, as well as through India 
in general, if this name is confined to Hindusthan, I may 
venture to say, that neither produces any species of Sagus, 
and the Todda panna is the only plant of Malabar that 
could be mistaken for such. Willdenow seems therefore 
perfectly right in confining the Sagus raj)hia, which he calls 
Ruffia (Sp. PL iv. 403), to Madagascar, although it may 
probably be found in other parts of Africa. 
Planta Osmundse genere Pappa dicta, p. 89. 
We have no figure of this plant, which is a native of 
Celebes ; nor are we even certain of its not being actually 
a Fern ; but it is more probably a Cycas. 
Arbor calappoides sinensis, p. 92, t. 
All modern authors agree in calling this the Cycas re- 
voluta, the female fructification of which has been most ac- 
curately described and delineated in the 6th volume of the 
Linnsean Transactions, by my worthy friend Sir J. E. 
Smith. A very great difficulty occurs in Thunberg making 
this the tree, the stem of which produces a most nutritious 
substance, so precious, that it is a capital crime to export 
the tree from Japan, while its fruit is an esculent drupe. 
The drupe probably may be used as a wretched aliment in 
times of scarcity, as is the case in Malabar with that of the 
Cycas circinalis (Buchanan^s Mysore, ii. 469) ; or in times 
of mourning, as, according to Rumphius (p. 90), is done 
in Tamboca: but this intelligent and inquisitive author 
denies his ever having heard that a nutritious stibstance 
like sago could be procured from the stem of the 01 us ca- 
