2 
CABBAGE TREE. 
palmated, and borne by petioles from 18 to 24 inches long, nearly triangu- 
lar and united at the edges ; they vary in length and breadth from 1 foot 
to 5 feet, and are so arranged that the smallest occupy the centre of the 
summit, and the largest the circumference. Before their development they 
are folded like a fan, and as they open, the outside sticks break off and 
fall, leaving the base surrounded with filaments woven into a coarse, flim- 
sy and russet web. 
The base of the undisclosed bundles of leaves is white, compact and ten- 
der ; it is eaten with oil and vinegar, and resembles the artichoke and the 
cabbage in taste, whence is derived the name of Cabbage Tree. But to 
destroy a vegetable which has been a century in growing, to obtain three 
or four ounces of a substance neither richly nutritious nor peculiarly agree- 
able to the palate, would be pardonable only in a desert which was destined 
to remain uninhabited for ages. With similar prodigality of the works of 
Nature, the first settlers of Kentucky killed the Buffalo, an animal weighing 
1200 or 1500 pounds, for the pleasure of eating its tongue, and abandoned 
the carcase to the beasts of the wilderness. 
The Cabbage Tree bears long clusters of small greenish flowers, which 
are succeeded by a black, inesculent fruit, about the size of a pea. 
In the Southern States the wood of this tree, though extremely porous, 
is preferred to every other for wharves : its superiority consists in being 
secure from injury by sea-worms, which, during the summer, commit such 
ravages in structures accessible to their attacks ; but when exposed to be 
alternately wet and dry in the flowing and ebbing of the tide, it decays as 
speedily as other wood. This use of the Cabbage Tree is rapidly dimin- 
ishing its numbers, and probably the period is not distant when it will 
cease to exist within the boundaries of the United States. 
In the war of Independence the Cabbage Tree was found eminently 
fitted for constructing forts, as it closes on the passage of the ball, with- 
out splitting. 
The growth and development of the Palms have occupied the attention 
of distinguished botanists, to whose memoirs the reader is referred for 
more accurate information. The tardy growth of this species will always 
discourage its propagation. 
PLATE CL 
A Cabbage Tree with its Fruit. 
