CHAP. IV.

NUTRITIVE PLANTS.

SECTION I.

Introductory Remarks.

UNDER this title we shall only give specimens of such as are most

rare, curious, or valuable; this being the direct scope of the present work, and the limit to which we have confined ourselves in every department of it. There is some difficulty, however, in drawing the line; since, such is the peculiar construction of the digestive organs of different kinds and classes of animals, that a plant or part of a plant which is harmless and inactive to one description, proves strongly medicinal to a second, a useful food to a third, and a rank poison to a fourth: thus the tetrao cupido or pinnated grous, the deer, and some species of the elk, draw an excellent nutriment from the leaves of the kalmia latifolia, which are destructive to sheep, black cattle, horses, and man. The bee greedily and with perfect safety extracts its honey, but the comb hereby produced is poisonous to those who eat of it. So the dhanesa or Indian buceros, feeds to excess on the colubrina or nux vomica; the land-crab (cancer raricola) on the berries of the hippomane or manchineel tree, and goats on the conium maculatum or medicinal hemlock. In the following sections, therefore, we shall take our examples from plants employed as foods, cordials, or aromatics, by the different nations and varieties of mankind: and our readers will readily allow us to introduce it with the elegant verses of Dr. Darwin.

Sylphs! who round earth, on purple pinions borne,
Attend the radiant chariot of the morn;

Lead the gay hours along the ethereal height,
And on each dun meridian shower the light;
Sylphs! who from realms of equatorial day
To climes, that shudder in the polar ray,

From zone to zone pursue on shifting wing,
The bright perennial journey of the spring;

Bring my rich balms from Mecca's hallow'd glades,
Sweet flowers, that glitter in Arabia's shades;
Fruits, whose fair forms in bright succession glow,
Gilding the banks of Arno, or of Po;

Each leaf, whose fragrant steam with ruby lip
Gay China's nymphs from pictur'd vases sip;
Each spicy rind, which sultry India boasts,
Scenting the night-air round her breezy coasts;
Roots, whose bold stems in bleak Siberia blow,
And gem with many a tint the eternal snow;
Barks, whose broad umbrage high in ether waves
O'er Andes' steeps, and hides his golden caves;
-And, where yon oak extends his dusky shoots
Wide o'er the rill, that bubbles from his roots;
Beneath whose arms, protected from the storm,
A turf-built altar rears its rustic form;
Sylphs! with religious hands fresh garlands twine,
And deck with lavish pomp Hygeia's shrine."

[EDITOR.

SECTION II.

Bread-fruit Tree.

Artocarpus. LINN.

THE systematic name Artocarpus is merely the English name of the plant translated into Greek. Of this plant there are several species; particularly A. incisa, or bread-fruit tree, with cut or indented leaves; and A. integrifolia, or bread-fruit tree, with whole leaves. The latter is called in India joccahee; it has many varieties, and bears fruit like the preceding, but of an inferior kind.

The genuine bread-fruit tree is the artocarpus incisa. Though this tree has been mentioned by many voyagers, particularly by Dampier, by Rumphius, and by Lord Anson, yet very little notice seems to have been taken of it, till the return of Captain Wallis from the South Seas.

Captain Cook, in his Voyage, observes, that this fruit not only

serves as a substitute for bread among the inhabitants of Otaheite and the neighbouring islands, but also, variously dressed, composes the principal part of their food. It grows on a tree that is about the size of a middling oak; its leaves are frequently a foot and a half long, of an oblong shape, deeply sinuated like those of the figtree, which they resemble in colour and consistence, and in the exuding of a milky juice, upon being broken. The fruit is about the size and shape of a new-born child's head, and the surface is reticulated, not much-unlike a truffle; it is covered with a thin skin, and has a core about it as big as the handle of a small knife. The eatable part lies between the skin and the core; it is as white as snow, and somewhat of the consistence of new bread; it must be roasted before it is eaten, being first divided into three or four parts; its taste is insipid, with a slight sweetness, somewhat resembling that of the crumb of wheaten bread mixed with a Jerusalem artichoke. This fruit is also cooked in a kind of oven, which renders it soft, and something like a boiled potatoe; not quite so farinaceous as a good one, but more so than those of the middling sort. Of the bread-fruit they also make three dishes, by putting either water or the milk of the cocoa-nut to it, then beating it to a paste with a stone pestle, and afterwards mixing it with ripe plantains, bananas, or the sour paste which they call mahie.

The unripe artocarpus mahie, is likewise made to serve as a succedaneum for ripe bread-fruit before the season is come on. The fruit of the bread-tree is gathered just before it is perfectly ripe; and being laid in heaps, is closely covered with leaves: in this state it undergoes a fermentation, and becomes disagreeably sweet; the core is then taken out entire, which is done by gently pulling out the stalk, and the rest of the fruit is thrown into a hole which is dug for that purpose generally in the houses, and neatly lined on the bottom and sides with grass: the whole is then covered with leaves, and heavy stones laid upon them in this state it undergoes a second fermentation, and becomes sour, after which it will suffer no change for many months. It is taken out of the hole as it is wanted for use; and being made into balls, it is wrapped up in leaves, and baked after it is dressed, it will keep for five or six weeks. It is eaten both cold and hot; and the natives seldom make a meal without it, though to Europeans the taste is as disagreeable as that of a pickled olive generally is the first time it is eaten.