HE BOTANICAL SOCIETY AND EXCHANGE CLUB - BSBI Archive

NOTES ON PUBLICATIONS, 1926. 41
The specific name is due to the irritating juice of the fruit. Arenga saccharifera
is also another Toddy-yielding species, and it has many other
important economic uses though the juice of its fruit is irritating. The
magnificent avenue of Oreodoxa oleracea at Peradeniya is shown. The
young tops, like those of many other species, are eaten as cabbage. In
beauty oleracea is excelled by its congener, O. regia, a native of the West
Indies. It is to be seen in its glory in the great avenues at Rio. The
last species we can find room to allude to is Areca Oatechu from which
the Betel Nut is obtained. Round it much Eastern literature centres.
It is.a splendid tree up to 100 feet high, but its native home is uncertain.
It is wild enough in the Attabadi Valley in Malabar at about 300 feet
as Mr Fisher, who is cited here, told me. The Betel has been used as
a masticatory since very remote times. The sliced seed is wrapped in a
leaf of Piper Betel and a little lime is added. The inspissated extract
forms the Catechu or Cutch of commerce, a very astringent substance
full of tannin. The Oil Palm of Tropical Africa is not indigenous in
India. The kernels yield a white fat much used in soap making. Space
forbids an account of the Coco-nut, which needs a book to itself, except
to point out that Cocoa-nut is a misspelling. The word Coco is derived
from the likeness of the Nut to the head of a monkey cooo. Botanists
must be grateful for the production of such a readable and accurate account
of a family not less remarkable for its beauty than for its economic
importance. The claims made on the wrapper are not. in the least exaggerated
and in order that they may be put in a more permanent form,
they are repri'hted here. "Many monographs have been written on particular
groups of palms; this volume is the first comprehensive survey of the
whole range of palms found in British India and Ceylon, including
foreign species which are grown only under cultivation or for ornamental
purposes. Indeed it is the great number of these introduced foreign
palms, and of separate monographs dealing with them, that makes a
survey of this type so necessary. The botanist will find the treatment of
the subject scientific find exhaustive; but the needs of the amateur of·
palms, of the economist, and even of the anthropologist have not been
over-looked, and there are full notes on the gardening, the commercial
products, and the folklore of palms. There are 106 full-page plates and
numerous figures in the text; also a comprehensive bibliography and
index."
BOTANICAL ABSTRACTS. Vol. xv. Entries 1-5778. January-June 1926.
Published by Williams & Wilkins Co., Baltimore. Editor-in-Chief, J.
R. Schramm; Taxonomy Editor, J. M. Greenham.
BOWER, F. 0., Sc.D., LL.D., F.R.S. THE FERNS (FILICALES). Vol.
ii. THE EUSPORANGIATAE AND OTHER RELATIVELY PRIMITIVE FERNS. pp.
844, figs. 811-580. Cambridge University Press, 1926; 30/-. Emeritus­
Professor Bower, with his well-known literary skill, quotes the suppliants
of Euripides-
" On a far-looking tower I stood to watch
And three tribes I beheld, of war bands three."