»3 8 ARE 
upon fhort (lender peduncles, each Supporting five or fix 
fmall white fiowers, having an agreeable odour. They 
.commonly-appear in July and Anguft; but are feld'om 
fucceeded by feeds in England. The berries do not ripen 
till the fprlng following, and are then of a deep-red co¬ 
lour. It is a native of the Cape of Good Hope, whence 
the feeds were brought to Holland, and tirft railed in the 
gardens there. 
It may be increafed by cuttings, planted in July, and 
Ihaded from the fun; when they have taken root, they 
lhould be removed into 1 mall pots, and placed in the (hade 
till they have taken root again : they may then be remo¬ 
ved to a fheltered (itnation till autumn, when they muft 
be put Into a rreen-houfe, or under a hot-bed frame ; this 
plant being ti<> tender to live in the open air. 
ARDU'ITY,/ Height; -difficulty. 
AR'DIJOUS, adj. [ arduus , Lat.] Lofty; hard to climb. 
Difficult. — It was a means to bring him up in the fchool 
of arts and policy, and fo to fit him for that great and ar¬ 
duous employment that God defigned him to. South. 
AR'DUOUSNESS, /. Height; difficulty. 
A'RE, The third perfon plural of the prefent tenfe of 
the verb to be ; as, Young men are ra(h, old are cautious. 
Are', or Ai.amire',/. The lowed note but one in Gui¬ 
do’s fcale of mufic : 
Gamut I am, the ground of all accord, 
Are to plead Hortenlio’s paflion ; 
B mi Bianca take him for thy lord, 
C faut, that loves with all afleftion. Shakefpeare. 
A'REA,yi [Lat.] The furface contained between any 
lines or boundaries. Any open furface, as, the floor of a 
room ; the open’part of a church ; the vacant part or ftage 
of an amphitheatre. An inclofed place, as lifts, or a bowl¬ 
ing-green, or grafs-plot. Alfo'that kind of baldnefs where 
the crown of the head is left naked like the tonfure of a 
monk.—The Alban lake is of an oval figure, and, by rea- 
fon of the high mountains that encompafs it, looks like 
the area of fome vaft amphitheatre. Addifon. 
In areas vary’d with Mofaic art, 
Some whirl the difk, and fome the jav’lin dart. Pope. 
Area, in geometry, denotes the fuperficial content of 
any figure. Thus, if a figure, e.g. a field, be in form of 
a fquare, and its fide be forty feet long, its area is faid to 
be 1600 fquare feet; or it contains 1600 little fquares, 
each a foot every way. 
To ARE'AD, or Are'ed, v.a. \aredan, Sax. to coun- 
fel.] To advife ; to direft: 
But mark what I aread thee now: avaunt, 
Fly thither whence thou fled’ll! If from this hour 
Within theft hallow’d limits thou appear, 
Back to th* infernal pit I drag thee chain’d. Milton. 
AREALU',/. in botany. See Ficus religiosa. 
A'REB.y. a kind of imaginary money ufed in the do¬ 
minions of the Great Mogul. Four arebs are equal to 
one crou or 100 lacs; one lac to 100,000 rupees. 
AREBO', or Arebon', a town on the (lave-coaft of 
Guinea, in Africa, feated at the mouth of the river For- 
mofo. The Englifh had once a fadtory there, as the Dutch 
have ftill. It is a large place, well peopled, and furnifhed 
with houfes built of reeds and leaves. Lat. 5. o.N. Ion. 
S-S- E. 
ARE'CA,/! in botany, a genus of the monoecia enne- 
andria clafs, ranking in the natural order of palmae or 
palms. The generic characters are—I. Male flowers. 
Calyx: fpat-he bivalve ; fpadix branched; proper perian- 
thium three-leaved. Corolla: petals tree, acuminate, ri¬ 
gid. Stamina : filaments nine, the three outer longer than 
the reft. 11 . Female flow'ers, in the fame fpadix. Calyx : 
fpathe common with the males; proper perianthium three- 
leaved. Corolla: petals three, acuminate, rigid. Peri- 
carpium : berry fubovote, fibrofe, furrounded at the baft 
with the imbricate calyx. Seed: ovate.— EJfential Cha- 
raEler. Corolla, three-petalled. Male, nine ftamens. Fe¬ 
male, a drupe, with an imbricate calyx. 
ARE 
Species. 1. Areca catechu : fronds pinnate ; leaflets 
folded back, oppofite, end-bitten. The areca is a palm, 
growing to the height of forty or fifty feet ; the trunk is 
lix or eight inches in diameter, very ftrait, round, cover¬ 
ed with a fmobth afh-coleured bark, and marked with pa¬ 
rallel rings. The flowers are white, very fmall, and tri¬ 
angular ; fmelling fweet, but faintly, morning and even¬ 
ing. The fruit, according to Gertner, is a berried drupe, 
or, to fpeak more properly, a berry : it does not fall off, 
even when ripe. The Indians call it chotool, and prefent 
it to their guefts in all vifits, green when they can pro¬ 
cure it fo, and ftripped of the outer rind ; but, if not, fry : 
they cut it in dices, and give it wrapped in the aromatic 
leaves of betel, which they cover with a thin layer of 
fliell-lime to preferve the flavour longer in the mouth : 
they are continually chewing it, fwallowing their faliva 
tindtured with the juice, and /pitting out the reft: the 
infide of their mouths appears as red as blood, and their 
teeth contract a dark colour ; it preferves them however, 
and is efteemed for fweetening the breath, as being good 
again!! the feurvy in the gums, and as ftrengthening the 
ftomach and appetite. A decoflion of the nuts is alfo 
uled in dying, and is fuppofed both to fet and enliven the 
colours. For thefe purpofes feveral veflels are fent yearly 
from Cochin-china to China and India. They are alfo 
ufed medicinally in conftipations of the bowels, in worm 
cafes, &c. This palm is a native of the Faft Indies. It 
is cultivated every where in Cochin-china, not only on the 
coafl, but in the mountains. In the fouthefn provinces 
of China it is rare, but in thofe of the north it is never feen. 
2. Areca oryzteformis : fronds pinnate, leaflets fmooth, 
three-nerved. This is a very (lender palm, the trunk be¬ 
ing only an inch and a half in diameter, or at moft fcarcely 
the thicknefs of a man’s leg; about ten feet in height, and 
very ftraight. Native of Cochin-china, Amboyna, &c. 
In the former the fruit is larger than in the latter, it is 
ufed for chewing with the betel-leaf, as well as the fore-, 
going fpecies. 
3. Areca oleracea, or cabbage-tree : leaflets quite entire. 
The cabbage-tree is the higheft of the American palms, 
and is very diftindt from the Eaft-lndian areca. The flieaths 
of the leaves are very clofe, and form the green top of the 
trunk, a foot and a half in length. The fruits are oblong 
obtufe berries, (lightly bent, of a purple colour, fuccu- 
lent, fcarcely fibrofe, the fize of a middling olive: the 
pulp dries away, and becomes a brittle wrinkled bark. 
The nut or ftone is oblong, fmoothifh, rather acute at the 
baft, membranaceous, brittle, thin, whitilh-brown fre¬ 
quently with a (hade of red. The kernel is oblong, car¬ 
tilaginous, very Hard, and has a cavity in the middle of a 
fmall fiflure. The inhabitants cut off the green top of 
the trunk, take out the white heart of two or three inches 
in diameter, confiding of the leaves clofely folded toge¬ 
ther, and expofe it to fale in the herb-market. It is eaten' 
either raw with pepper and fait, or fried with butter, and 
has then fomewhat the tafte of artichoke. The Jamaica 
cabbage-tree, fays Dr. Patrick Browne, is frequent in mod 
of the fugar-iflands, and grows commonly to a moderate 
fize. The body of the tree is generally pretty tall, up¬ 
right, and even ; and throws out its flowers immediately 
under the column formed by the (heathed bottoms of the 
ribs': theft, in the fize and difpofition, as well as in the 
form of both their bunches and covers, are very like thofe 
of the Barbadoes palm ; and its foliage, as in that plant, 
affords a delicate whole/ome green, which is commonly 
•called mountain-cabbage; and for which it is generally 
cut down. The outward part of the tree is ufed for la¬ 
thing, and boards for out-houfes; the feeds ferve to feed 
the wild hogs in the feafon, and the fpathes are frequently 
made into mats by the negroes. The beft cabbage is ob¬ 
tained when the tree is young, and not above fifteen or 
fixteen feet high. The fruit is devoured by birds, who 
mute the (tones, by which means there is a continual nur- 
fery of thefe trees, which otherwife would foon be extir¬ 
pated. The external coat of the trunk is impenetrable to 
