Palmæ.
Palm Family.
Areca Catechu, L.
Nom. Vulg.—Bog̃a, Tag.; Betel-nut Palm, Areca, Eng.
Uses.—The seeds form part of a masticatory very common throughout the extreme Orient, known as Buyo and composed of a betel leaf, a little slaked lime, and a slice of the fruit of the bonga, known as Siri in Indo-China and among the Malays. It is so common that it is hard to find a man or woman who does not use it. The saliva of those who use it is red and of a strong odor, and its careless use in time blackens the teeth and makes the breath extremely disagreeable. Habitual chewers consider it a tonic of the mouth and stomach and a general stimulant as well. It probably does possess these properties but they are reversed in the case of persons who use it immoderately for they lose appetite, become salivated, and the whole organism degenerates. The carbonized and powdered fruit is used as a dentifrice but its virtues are doubtless identical with those of any vegetable charcoal, i. e., absorbent and antiseptic.
One unaccustomed to the use of bonga and chewing it for the first time, usually experiences a most disagreeable combination of symptoms; constriction of the œsophagus, a sensation of heat in the head and face, the latter becoming red and congested; at the same time dizziness and precordial distress are experienced. The same phenomena occur in certain persons after eating palmito salad or the tender central portion of the bonga and of other palms.
The flowers are eaten in salad like the above-mentioned palmito. The seed is astringent and tænifuge; for the latter purpose it is given internally as a powder in a dose of from 16 to 24 grams. Its action is uncertain. The catechu which is obtained in India from the Bonga differs from that obtained from the Acacia Catechu and is a tonic analogous to rhatany and cinchona.
The seeds contain about 14% of a fatty crystalline material which melts at 39°, and after saponification yields a crystalline, fatty acid that may be regarded as a mixture of lauric and muriatic acids. They also contain about 14% of a red, amorphous tonic material which, after drying, is but slightly soluble in cold or hot water.
The lower part of the petiole of the leaves is thin and broad, ensheathing the trunk, is as tough as pasteboard when dry and is used in the Philippines as wrapping paper; Dr. Bholanauth Bose and other physicians of India use it as a material for splints in fractures, a practice which might well be imitated in Manila and especially in the country.
Botanical Description.—A well-known palm with slender stem, surrounded by many circles; it grows to about the same height as the coco-nut palm or less. The flowers spring in bunches of long, thread-like spikes from the trunk a little below the crown of leaves at the base of the long, smooth, green, sheath-like petioles which clasp the trunk; each spike bears many staminate and a few pistillate flowers. The fruit is about the size and shape of a hen’s egg, the husk tow-like or filamentose, the kernel pinkish or light red.
Habitat.—Grows throughout the islands.
Cocos nucifera, L.
Nom. Vulg.—Coco, Sp.-Fil.; Niog, Tag.; Coco-nut Palm, Eng.
Uses.—This plant is, perhaps, the most useful in the Philippines. Without it and the bamboo plant the people of the Archipelago would not know how to live. It produces vinegar, an alcoholic drink called tuba or coco-wine, an oil, an edible nut, and its leaves are used instead of nipa to roof the huts.
Tuba is an opaline, slightly sweet liquid, with an agreeable taste, which rapidly becomes acid under the influence of the heat. A flowering or fruit-bearing stalk, which has not been incised before, is chosen and encircled with several rings of rope or rattan. The stalk is then cut and a bamboo vessel called a bombón is hung to receive the sap which escapes during the night. This liquid is valuable as a drink for those who are debilitated, suffering from pulmonary catarrh, and even for consumptives, who are accustomed to drink it every morning, sometimes with marvelous results, according to reports. The heat of the day rapidly ferments the tuba, converting it into a mild vinegar, which is widely used for domestic purposes in the Philippines. When fermented and distilled it produces a weak alcohol of disagreeable taste called coco-wine.
The ripe fruit contains a rather soft and savory meat which is generally eaten mixed with the clear, sweet coco-nut milk. Later the meat becomes firmer and is used as a food and an oil much used in the islands is extracted from it. To extract the oil the meat is grated and pressed until all the juice is extracted. This is called the milk and when boiled is converted almost completely into oil. Cocoanut milk has an agreeable taste and may in some cases take the place of cow’s milk. It is apt to produce diarrhœa, however, which action may be bad for some but on the other hand good for others, such as the habitually constipated. Both the meat and the milk are widely used by the natives in making sweets.
In the greater part of the islands it is the only oil used for illumination. As a medicine it is employed internally as a purgative and externally in the treatment of scores of troubles in which the good results obtained are due, not to the oil but to the massage used in rubbing it in. It has the reputation of stimulating the growth of the hair and all the natives and some Europeans use it lavishly as a hair ointment. When fresh its odor is agreeable, but it easily becomes rancid and assumes a most disagreeable odor. In the Visayan Islands they make an oil of a nauseous odor which they call in Manila Caracoa. It is used only for illumination and by the poor.
At a temperature of 20° or more the oil remains liquid; it is colorless when fresh and properly extracted. It solidifies at 18° and two kinds of soap are made of it; one soft and exceedingly cheap called “Quiapo”; the other hard, white, of a high quality, but as a rule containing an excess of lime which in time is deposited in a fluorescent film on its surface.
In India the root is employed in the treatment of dysentery.
Botanical Description.—A tree most familiar to every one.
Habitat.—Common in all parts of the Archipelago.
Nipa fruticans, Wurmb.
Nom. Vulg.—Nipa, Sp.-Fil.; Sasa, Tag.
Uses.—The dry leaves of this palm are generally used in the villages of Manila Province, Pampanga, Bulacan and other provinces in the construction of roofs and walls of houses, which are therefore called “nipa houses.” The decoction of the fresh leaves is used as a lotion for indolent ulcers, and a popular preserve is made from the fruit.
Like the coco and following the same process the nipa yields a liquid also called tuba and possessing properties identical with those of the former plant. The weak alcohol distilled from it has some repute in the treatment of conjunctivitis, for which purpose a few drops are mixed with a small quantity of water and the eyes are washed with it several times a day. This alcohol, improperly called wine of nipa, has a characteristically unpleasant odor which makes it impracticable for medicinal or industrial use. Several chemists have attempted to remove the characteristic odor from nipa alcohol, but their results had always been negative because the odorous principle was distilled over at the same temperature as the alcohol. Finally a distinguished Filipino chemist, D. Anacleto del Rosario, perfected a process of producing from the nipa tuba an absolute alcohol perfectly free from the characteristic odor; an alcohol, in fact, possessing all the qualities of chemically pure alcohol, and of such a high grade that it was awarded the first prize at the last World’s Fair in Paris.
Botanical Description.—A palm about 6° high with long, pinnate leaves with leaflets which separate, at maturity, like those of the coco palm. Flowers monœcious, in a spathe. Fruit, many pyramidal drupes joined together, but easily separable. The outer covering of each drupe is hard, the inner part tow-like; seed enveloped in a sort of fleshy white meat.
Habitat.—Salt water marshes, especially in Pampanga and the Visayan Islands.