IVORY PALMS.
Palme de marfil, . SPAN. I Homers, Indians of PERU. Ta2,-ua, Indians of DARIEN. Pullipunta „ . 91 The ivory palms arc the Phytelephas macro carpa and I'. microcarpa, trees of S. America, between lat. 9° N. and 8° S., and long. 70° to 79° W., inhabiting damp valleys, banks of rivers, and rivulets on the lower coast region in Darien, and on mountains 3000 feet above tho sea in Ocana, growing generally in separate groves, seldom intermixed with other trees or shrubs. The fruit, a collection of from six to seven drupes, forms clusters which are as large as a man's head, and stand at first erect, but when approaching matur ity, its weight increasing, and the leaf - stalk which had up to that period supported the bulky mass having rotted away, it bangs down. A plant bears at one time from six to eight of these heads, each weighing when ripe about twenty-five pounds. The drupes are covered outside with bard woody protuberances. Vegetable ivory was exported chiefly from the river Magdalena, and in some years no less than 150 tons of it were imported into England. The Indians employ the leaves of this
most beautiful palm as a covering to their cottages. The fruit at first contains a clear insipid fluid, with which travellers quench their thirst ; this fluid afterwards becomes gradually sweet and milky, and at length acquires solidity, so as to be as hard as ivory. if the fruit be gathered while the juice is fluid, the latter soon becomes acid ; but when allowed to attain perfection, the kernels are of sufficient hardness to be employed by the Indians as knobs for walking-sticks, reels of spindles, and little toys, which are white, and perfectly hard while dry ; if they aro put under water they soften, but on drying, their hardness is restored. Bears eagerly devour the young fruit. The vegetable ivory is, in fact, the albumen surrounding the embryo, and which in some other palms, as the cocoanut palm, constitutes a beauti ful and firm substance lining the shell. This useful plant might bo introduced into India.— Seeman in Botanical Magazine, May 1856, p. 192.