THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
13 
which in flowering time are a beautiful mass of white flow- 
ers. The new canes do not hug the ground, but are kept 
up by the great mass of old growth and tip rather sparingly. 
It is a coarser plant than R. hispidus, which grows close 
to the ground, branching and tipping readily with shining 
crenate-dentate, persistent leaves and small inflorescence 
with inconspicuous flowers. 
Westminster, Vt. 
CYCAD SAGO. 
THE Sago of Commerce is the product of the Metroxylon 
Sagu, 2l species of palm which is indigenous to the 
forests of the marshes of Borneo and the neighbouring is- 
lands of the Eastern Archipelago. It is also yielded in con- 
siderable quantities by several other members of the great 
palm family as well as by a variety of herbaceous and 
other plants that luxuriate in the warmth and moisture of 
the evergreen forests of the tropical world. Of the last 
mentioned group few are more interesting than the beautiful 
feathery leaved cycads of India. These humble plants, 
whose graceful foliage resembles that of some of the in- 
digenous tree ferns or of the delicate rattan palms, occur 
generally as sporadic under-shrubs in the forests of the 
plains at low elevations as well as in the secluded 
valleys of the hills. Their glistening green tiers 
of abruptly pinnate leaves that are brone in sim- 
ple whorls at the tops of the stems lend soft- 
ness and charm to the varied vegetation of the localities in 
which they install themselves, while their rugged dark brown 
cylindrical trunks, from the resemblance which they bear to 
the stems of the palms, have earned for the cycads the mis- 
leading epithet of the decorating palms of India and the 
East. 
