OX VEGETABLE IVORY PALM. 
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gua, for one real a pound, at Ocana. A spoonful of it, with 
a little sugar and water, makes the celebrated Chique de 
Tagua, said to be the most delicious beverage of the 
country." 
The fruit of the Phytelephas will be considered of more in- 
terest by our readers than the flowers. The size of our 
large fruits is ten inches across, and twenty-five in circum- 
ference : they appear at the base of the leaves on very short 
stalks, the great heads (Cabeza de Negro, like Negroes' heads, 
whence that name) resting on the ground, or lodged among 
the axils of the foliage, constituting a dry Drupe ; that is, the 
covering to the seeds in an early stage is soft, fluid, or pulpy, 
but eventually dries up into a hard, almost woody mass, 
3 — 4 or 5-lobed, and everywhere embossed with conical, an- 
gular tubercles, something like the coat of a pine-apple. 
These tubercles, however, vary remarkably in size and length, 
giving an impression that there are several species of the 
genus. Within each lobe are several (the number would ap- 
pear very uncertain) large, hard, smooth, oval, or obovate, or 
almost spherical seeds, of a greyish-brown color, sometimes 
w r ith the sides flattened by pressure, sometimes depressed. 
In this state they are sent to Europe, for it is they which 
contain the ivory-like substance. The outer coat, hard and 
crustaceous, is easily removed, when a thin brown skin ap- 
pears, marked with anastomosing vessels, and distinguished 
by a hole or foramen, indicating the position of the embryo. 
Within this skin, the whole is occupied from the centre to 
the circumference, with the exception of the small embryo, 
by the albumen, the food of the young plant, analogous to 
the white of an egg; and the albumen (which, in the cocoa- 
nut is soft and fleshy and eatable) is here firm and hard, in 
appearance exactly resembling ivory, hence employed by 
the mechanics, as far as the size will allow, for various pur- 
poses in turning, &c, as a substitute for ivory, a much more 
expensive article. What is wanting in size, however, is often 
made up by the skill and ingenuity of the workman : when 
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