PANDANUS. 
pering filaments. The female flowers are on a different 
plant, terminating and folitary, having no other calyx or 
corolla than the termination of the three rows of leaves 
forming three imbricated fafcicles of white floral leaves, 
like thofe of the male raceme, which ftand at equal dis¬ 
tances round the bafe of the young fruit. Germs nume¬ 
rous, collected in firm wedge-fhaped angular bundles of 
from fix to ten or more, forming the compound germs 
of the future drupes, clofely impacted round the recep¬ 
tacle. The fruit is compound, oval, from five to eight 
inches in diameter, and from fix to ten in length, weigh¬ 
ing from four to eight pounds, rough, of a rich'orange- 
colour compofed of numerous wedge-fhaped angular 
drupes ; when ripe, their large or exterior ends are de¬ 
tached from one another, and covered with a firm deeper 
orange-coloured fkin; apices flat, confifting of as many 
angular fomewhat-convex tubercles as there are cells in 
the drupe, each crowned with the withered ftigma inter¬ 
nally ; the exterior half of thefe drupes, next the apex, 
confifts of dry fpongy cavities, their lower part next the 
core or common receptacle is yellow, confifting of a rich¬ 
looking yellow pulp, intermixed with ftrong fibres ; here 
the nut is lodged. This is compound, top-fhaped, ex¬ 
ceedingly hard, angular, containing as many cells as there 
are divifions on the apex of the drupe ; each cell is per¬ 
forated above and below. Seed Angle, oblong, fmooth, 
adhering length wife to a fmall fafcicle of ftrong white 
fibres, which pafs through the perforation of the cell. By 
far the greater number Of thefe cells are barren. 
It is a native of the warmer parts of Afia. All foils 
and fituations feem to fuit it equally well: it flowers 
chiefly during the rainy feafon. This plant is much em¬ 
ployed there for hedges, and anfwers well, but takes 
much room. It grows readily from branches, whence it 
is rare to find the full-grown ripe fruit. The tender white 
leaves of the flowers, chiefly thofe of the male, yield that 
moft delightful fragrance for which they are fo generally 
efteemed ; and of all the perfumes it is by far the richeft 
and pioft powerful. The lower yellow pulpy part of the 
drupe is fometimes eaten by the natives in times of fcar- 
city and famine. The tender white bafe of the leaves is 
alfo eaten raw or boiled at fuch melancholy times. The 
tafte of.the pulpy part of the drupe is very difagreeable. 
The roots are compofed of tough fibres, which batket- 
makers ufe to tie their work with ; they are fo foft and 
fpongy as to ferve the natives for corks : the leaves alfo 
are compofed of longitudinal, tough, ufeful fibres. It is 
not cultivated in the Eaft Indies with any other view 
than for fences. In the Supplement of the younger Lin- 
neus it is faid, from Forlkahl and Thunberg, to be culti¬ 
vated for the fake of its fragrance. Mugcdie is the Te- 
linga name of the male plant, and ghcezangee that of the 
female ; caldera is the name they are known by amongft 
Europeans on the coaft of Coromandel. The above ac¬ 
count, and the reprefentation (natural fize) of the beau¬ 
tiful fruit of this fpecies, are from Roxburgh’s fplendid 
work on the Plants of the Coaft of Coromandel. 
In the South-Sea iflands, where the parfdanus is alfo a 
native, this or fome other fpecies or variety is ufed for 
making mats. The leaves are beautifully white and glof- 
fy. In the Sandwicli-iflands thefe mats are handfomely 
worked in a variety of patterns, and ftained of different 
colours. The branches being of a foft fpongy juicy na¬ 
ture, cqttle will eat them very well, when cut into fmall 
pieces. They call it wharra-iree at Otaheite, according 
to Hawkefworth. Forfter fays, that the fruit in Otaheite 
is called vara, and the male flowers hinanno; that it is 
fond of fandy coafts, and is found on almoft all the 
iflands of the fouthern ocean, within the tropics, even 
on thofe which are occafionally inundated , that it refem- 
bles the ananas in the fruit and leaves, and may be con-’ 
nefted with the palms with more propriety than Stratiotes 
and Vallifneria; that it is cultivated in Arabia and Cey¬ 
lon on account of the fragrancy of the male flowers; that 
the women in India, efpecially on the iflands, powder their 
Vol. XVIII. No. 1246. 
325 
hair with the dull of the anthers, which is very fragrant, 
and that they lay up the floral leaves and bunches of 
flowers among their clothes ; that in Ternate they drefs 
the flowers before they open as fauce for flelh and filh ; 
that in Banda they lay the leaves on wounds; that in 
India the fruit is eaten by elephants, in Otaheite and the 
neighbouring iflands by children, and, when bread-fruit 
is fcarce, even by grown perfons 5 and that it has a fine 
aromatic fcent like the ftrawberry or the pine-apple, a 
tafte at firft fweetilh, but afterwards aftringent and auftere. 
Forfter mentions four varieties figured in the Hortus 
Malabaricus, t. 5, 6, 7, 8. and fays that fome varieties 
have no fragrance. Loureiro has diftinguilhed two other 
fpecies : hum\lis, Hort. Malab. t. 6. and lavis. Rumph. 
Amb. p. 147. We are by no means competent to unravel 
all the varieties, or rather fpecies, of this plant, defcribed 
by Rumphius and Rheede, but which fucceeding botani¬ 
cal travellers have left unexplained. Mr. R. Brown has 
given definitions of the following two fpecies, without 
any fynonyms. 
2. Pandanus pedunculatus: trunk throwing out run¬ 
ners ; drupes conical and lobed at the fummit, fomewhat 
contra&ed at the bafe. Native of the tropical part of New 
Holland. 
3. Pandanus fpiralis s trunk without runners; drupes 
depreffed and teffellated at the fummit, very obtufe at the 
bafe. Gathered like wife by Mr. Brown, in the fame part 
of the world. 
4. Pandanus leram, thefoicobar bread-fruit tree : trunk 
throwing out runners ; pine-lhaped. We have noticed 
the tree that bears this nutritive fruit under the article 
Nicobars, vol. xvii. p. 63. It is very abundant in thofe 
iflands, as well as in Carnicobar : it grows promifcuoufly 
in the woods, among other trees, but it delights, more 
particularly in a damp foil. The trunk is often ftraight, 
thirty or thirty-five feet high, and ten or tw'elve inches 
(the oldeft even two feet) in circumference. The bark 
is fmooth, alh-coloured, with equi-diftant interfeCtions of 
a compadt hard texture in its interior part, but foft and 
quite hollow in the centre from the top of the trunk; 
the leaves grow difpofed like a calyx, about three feet 
long, and four inches broad, enfiform and aculeate, of a 
dark-green hue, and of a tenacious hard fubftance. The 
roots are out of the ground, and inferted at eight or ten 
feet on the trunk, according to its age, being not quite 
two feet in the earth. The fruit which has the flhape of 
a pine, and the fize of a large Jaca, comes out of the 
bottom of the leaves. The age of a man is feldom fuffi- 
cient to fee the trees bearing fruit: its weight forces it 
out of the leaves, and, when it is nearly ripe, which is 
known by the natives on the change of its colour ffom 
green to yellowifh, it is gathered, ^nd weighs from thirty 
to forty pounds. The drupes are loofened by thrufting 
a piece of iron between their interftices : the exterior fur- 
face is cut off, and thus put into earthen pots covered 
with leaves, then boiled on a flow fire for feveral hours to¬ 
gether : the fruit is fufficiently boiled, when the medul¬ 
lary part of it becomes foft and friable ; it is then taken 
from the fire and expofedto the cold air; when cold,the 
drupes are feparated from the ftalk, and the medullary 
part preffed out by means of a fliell forced into them. 
Within the woody part of the drupes there are two feeds, 
in fhape and tafte much like almonds : the foft part is 
then collected into a fpherical mafs : and, in order to ex¬ 
tract all the ftringy fragments remaining in it by the com- 
preffion of the fhell, a thread is paffed and repaffed, un¬ 
til the whole is extracted, and it comes out perfectly 
clean : it is then of a pale-yellow colour, much refem- 
bling ■polenta , or the dreffed meal of the Zea mays, and 
in tafte much like it: when not newly prepared it has an 
acidity, to which it tends very ltrongly if long expofed to 
the atmofphere ; but it may be prelerved a long time, if 
well covered. 
The Nicobar bread-fruit tree differs very effentially from 
the palm defcribed by Mr. Maffon, and found in theinterior 
4 O parts 
