THE ACKEE 
83 
by their nurses. Tunnel-like entrances to this chamber are kept open, 
and along these food is carried by those left to work outside. 
These ants are said to stand at the head of the tribe in point of 
intelligence; and few ants show a greater sense of organization and 
mutual helpfulness. 
THE ACKEE 
F all the fruits that would be noticed for beauty alone, the ackee of 
^ the tropics excells them all. It is a fruit-flower; that is, its shape 
and color are such that in itself it is a very pretty flower as it hangs in 
the sunshine amid the bright green foliage. Its petals, or fruit-husk, 
are a bright red, while within depends the creamy lobes, each with a 
shiny black seed at its tip. This beautiful combination of colors, to¬ 
gether with the shape, makes what we might call a fruit-flower. 
So far as eating quality goes, its value is more as a vegetable and 
lies wholly in the creamy lobes, which, for lack of a better name, we shall 
.term food-lobes. These lobes are the only parts that can be used for 
food. The shiny black seeds and the pretty red husks are very poison¬ 
ous. Indeed, none of it is safe for food until nature herself opens the 
pods while they still hang on the tree. Should any daring or hungry 
person assay to use it prematurely, certain death would follow. How¬ 
ever, when the pod opens itself it is safe to eat. Only within the past 
few months the daily paper stated that some children who had cooked 
their own dinner had used “unfit” ackees, which resulted in the death 
of one of the children. 
Accompanying is a drawing showing a bunch of ackees in different 
stages of development. The flower proper is insignificant. It is of a 
yellow-green color and very small and spray-like. To give the best con¬ 
ception of the beauty of this fruit you should see its coloring, which 
we are unable to reproduce here. 
To show you the fruit in detail let us take an open ackee and ex¬ 
amine it. On the outside its husk is rough, and it is very thick. You 
will notice that, the husk has three divisions, and that there are three 
food-lobes. When closed, the lobes lie embedded in the husks, in a 
place hollowed out for them. Now it would be supposed that each 
division of husk would hold a single food-lobe, but this is not the ar¬ 
rangement. We shall notice the drawing: 1, a division of the husk; 
