40 Palmae. 
is in cultivation in Honolulu and possibly on Hawaii, is a native of 
India and Malaya. Its stout trunk, marked with rather distant an- 
nular scars reaches a height of thirty to thirty-six feet. The leaves 
are stiff, ascending, and the basal parts and trunk are clothed with 
stout black fibre. 
There are more than a hundred leaflets on each side, which are 
linear, with lobed and variously toothed apex. The stout flowering 
stalks, which are axillary, together with the drooping branches, are 
up to five feet in length. The very abundant fruits of the Sugar Palm 
are globose-depressed, and about two inches in diameter. 
The fibre found at the base of the petiole, is black and re- 
sembles horse hair. It is employed in China in caulking the seams 
of ships, and is also used as tinder for kindling. 
It is also employed for the making of moisture resisting ropes 
and cables. This fibre is known in India as Eju. 
From the interior of the stem sago is procured, which is how- 
ever, inferior to that obtained from the true Sago Palm, but is never- 
theless an important article of food, and is the source of the Java 
Sago. By certain people in India, the young and blanched leaf- 
stalks are eaten as a pickle while the young kernels are made into 
preserves with syrup. 
The sap of the palm, from which wine, sugar, and vinegar are 
prepared, is obtained in the following manner: One of the spadices 
or flowering stalks is, on the first appearance of the fruit, beaten on 
three successive days with a small stick, with the view of bringing 
the sap to the wounded part. The spadix is then cut a little way 
from its root (base) and the liquor which pours out is received in 
pots of earthenware, in bamboos or other vessels. The Sugar Palm 
is fit to yield toddy or palm wine when nine or ten years old and 
continues to yield it for two years at the average rate of three quarts 
a day. After the tree ceases to yield toddy it is cut down and the 
trunk then furnishes the starchy substance known as sago. The 
liquid is at first clear, but becomes turbid, whitish and somewhat 
acid in a short time, acquiring intoxicating qualities. It is in this 
state that great quantities are consumed. To obtain sugar the liquid 
is boiled to a syrup, and cooled in small vessels, the form of which 
it takes, and in this shape is sold in the markets. 
The sugar obtained is dark and greasy, with a peculiar flavor. 
According to an estimate a field of thirty acres planted with 
these trees should produce two thousand four hundred kilograms of 
sugar in a soil quite unfit for any other kind of culture. 
In Honolulu only a few scattered trees of this palm can be found. 
