1801. ] 
to the olive, and much fuperior in quality 
tothe cocoa butter, 
C. Labillardiere alfo read another Me- 
moiron a new {pecies of palm, called aren- 
ga. Itis the palma indica.vinaria fecunda 
Saguerus fue Gomaius ot Rumphius. . ‘The 
author has made it a new order, with the 
name arenga, from that of arezg, which 
is given to it in the Moluccas. 
The only fpecies of the arenga yet 
known is the 4. Saccharifera. This tree 
rifes about fixty feet (Englith); the alated 
leaves are fixteen to twenty feet long, the 
leaflets are dentated at their extremity, and 
have one or two appendices at their bafe. 
The leaf-ftalks are large at their bafe, and 
furnifhed with long black threads, with 
which the Malays make very durable ropes 
and cables. The leat-ftalks ferve to con- 
ftru&t their habitations, and the leaves to 
cover the roof. 
A faccharine liquor is obtained from 
this palm, by making incifions; and with 
good management this liquor will be 
yielded more than half the year, By fim- 
ple evaporation it gives a kind of fugar, of 
the colour and confiftence of chocolate 
newly made, but which is capable of fur- 
ther refining. The nuts of the young 
fruits make good confeétionary, and. the 
trunk yields excellent fago. 
C. DEcANDOLLE read a Memoir on the 
vegetation of the mifletoe. This is well 
known to be a parafitical plant, growing 
equally on feveral trees, and in every di- 
rection. Decandolle has made the follow- 
ing experiments on this fingular vege- 
‘table :— ' : 
1. To prove that the mifletoe draws its 
nourifiment from the plant on which it 
grows, he dipped in water, coloured red 
by cochineal, a branch of an apple-tree 
bearing a mifletoe. The coloured water 
penetrated the wood and inner bark of the 
apple and paffed into the mifletoe, where 
its colour was even more intenfe than in 
the former. It does not appear, however, 
that there is a true anaftomofis between the 
fibres of the mifletoe and thofe of the ap- 
ple ; but the bafe of the parafitical plant is 
furrounded with a kind of cellular fub- 
{tance in which the fibres of the apple-tree 
appear to-depofit the fap, and from which 
thofe of the mifletoe abforb it. ‘The pith 
of this plant is green in the young fhoots, 
and an infpection of a tranfverfe fe&tion of 
the ftem amply confirms the opinion of C. 
Desfontaines that the cellular tiffue is an 
exterior pith or medulla, rendered green by 
the light. ~ 
_ 2. C, Decandolle took a branch of ap- 
ple bearing a mifletoe, and dipped the Jat. 
Proceedings of Public Societies: 
253 
ter in the coloured water. The leaves 
began foon to fall, and fhewed a red cica- 
trice. The injection followed the woody 
fibres of the mifletoe, defcended to its in- 
fertion in the apple-branch, paffed into the 
wood of the latter, and defcended quite into 
its roots, ‘ 
3. Having taken two apple-branches 
loaded with two mifletoe plants of equal 
fize, having ftripped the leaves off both the 
apple-ftalks, and one of the mifletoes, in- 
troduced the bafis of each of the branches 
into cylindrical tubes, hermetically fealed, 
and filled with water, and inverted thefe 
tubes in a trough of mercury, he found 
the mifletoe that had kept its leaves to 
raife the mercury 119 millimetres in nine 
hours, and the ftripped mifletoe only 32% 
hereby fhewing that the leaves of this 
plant perform the fame funétions to the 
apple; tise as the true leaves of this tree 
0. 
4. Having taken two mifletoe-branches 
witff their leaves on, one of them planted on 
an apple-ftock, the other dipping directly 
into the water, and having difpofed them 
as in the preceding experimerft, the firft 
raifed the mercury 115 millimetres, and 
_the fecond raifed it a fingle time to 1% 
millimetres, and another time did not raife 
it at all. This fingular experiment fhews 
that the mifletoe of itfelf is almoft entirely 
unable toraife the fap. aed 
C. Decandolle remarks, on this occafion, 
that the property ‘of raifing the fap by 
means of a root is intimately connected 
with a perpendicularity of direction. 
Therefore plants, relative to their nutri- 
tion, may be divided into two claffes; - 
the firft draw nutriment from their whole 
furface, and live in a fingle medium only, 
which, in the lichens is air, in the fea- 
weed, water; and earth in the truffle. 
Thele vegetables have no tendency to per- 
pendicularity. The plants of the fecond 
clafs derive nutriment at a determinate 
part, which is called the root, and thefe 
exift in feveral mediums at once, the pota- 
mozetons, for inftance, in earth-and water; 
the firatiotes, in water and air; the oak, 
in earth and air; the nymphza, in earth, 
water, and air: ail tiis clafs point more 
or lefs to the zenith. 
MEDICAL SOCIETY of EMULATION. 
Dr. BoLtsa read a Memoir on the Ra- 
chitis, at the fitting of Dec. 4, in which 
he took notice of thé conjectures on the 
nature of this difeafe, which modern che- 
miftry has given rife to. The author ob- 
ferves, that, as the bones owe their foli- 
dity to cakareous phofphat, GES ts 
een 
