In China sago is obtained from Rhapis flabelliformis, a dwarfish palm; and some sago is made from it for native use in Travancore, Mysore, and Wynaad, and the jungles in the East Indies.
The trunk of the sago palm is five or six feet round, and it grows to the height of about 20 feet. It can only be propagated by seed. It flourishes best in bogs and swampy marshes; a good plantation being often a bog, knee deep. The pith producing the sago is seldom of use till the tree is fourteen or fifteen years old; and the tree does not live longer than thirty years. Mr. Crawfurd says there are four varieties of this palm; the cultivated, the wild, one distinguished by long spines on the branches, and a fourth destitute of these spines, and called by the natives female sago. This and the cultivated species afford the best farina; the spiny variety, which has a slender trunk, and the wild tree, yield but an inferior quality of sago. The farinaceous matter afforded by each plant is very considerable, 500 lbs. being a frequent quantity, while 300 lbs. may be taken as the common average produce of each tree.
Supposing the plants set at a distance of ten feet apart, an acre would contain 435 trees, which, on coming to maturity in fifteen years, would yield at the before-mentioned rate 120,500 lbs. annually of farinaceous matter. The sago meal, in its raw state, will keep good about a month. The Malays and natives of the Eastern Islands, with whom it forms the chief article of sustenance, partially bake it in earthenware moulds into small hard cakes, which will keep for a considerable time. In Java the word "saga" signifies bread. The sago palm (Metroxylon Sagus) is one of the smallest of its tribe, seldom reaching to more than 30 feet in height, and grows only in a region extending west to Celebes and Borneo, north to Mindanao, south to Timor, and east to Papua. Ceram is its chief seat, and there large forests of it are found. The edible farina is the central pith, which varies considerably in different trees, and as to the time required for its attaining proper maturity. It is eaten by the natives in the form of pottage. A farina of an inferior kind is supplied by the Gomuti palm (Borassus gomutus), another tree peculiar to the Eastern Archipelago growing in the valleys of hilly tracts.
At so great a distance it is difficult to decide as to which of these trees really produce the ordinary sagos of commerce, for there are several kinds. Planche, in an excellent memoir on the sagos, has described six species, which he distinguishes by the names of the places from which they come. Preferring to classify them according to their characters, M. Mayet distinguishes only three species.
The first he denominates Ancient sago, which comes from different parts, and varies much in color. It comprehends—1st, Maldivian sago of Planche, in spherical globules, of two or three millimetres in diameter, translucid, of an unequal pinkish white color, very hard and insipid. 2nd, New Guinea sago, of Planche, in rather smaller globules, of a bright red color on one side, and white on the other. 3rd. Grey sago of the Moluccas or brown sago of the English; of unequal globules, from one to three millimetres in diameter, opaque, of a dull grey color on one side, and whitish on the other. This grey color probably arises from long keeping and humidity. 4th. Large grey sago of the Moluccas, exactly resembling No. 3, only that the globules are from four to eight millimetres in diameter. 5th. Fine white sago of the Moluccas; entirely resembling No. 3, only that it is purely white, owing to the complete edulcoration of the fecula of which it is made.
Whatever may be the places of origin of these sagos, they all possess the following characters—
Rounded globules, generally spherical, all isolated, very hard, elastic, and difficult to break or powder. The globules put into water, generally swell to twice their original size, but do not adhere together.
Second sage.—This species corresponds with the pinkish sago of the Moluccas of Planche. It is in very small globules, less regular than those of the "first sago," and sometimes stuck together to the number of two or three. Soaked in water, it swells to double its volume.
Third Species.—Tapioca sago.—-This name has been applied to a species of sago now abundant in commerce, because it bears the same relation to the ancient or first sago, and even to the preceding sago, that tapioca bears to "Moussache," which is the fecula of the manioc, Janipha manihot (Manihot utilissima).
Whilst the two preceding species of sago, whatever may have been stated to the contrary, have been neither baked nor submitted to any heating process, as is proved by the perfect state of nearly all their grains of fecula, this species has been subjected to the action of heat while in a state of a moist paste. This sago is not in spherical globules, like the two preceding species, or at least there are but few of the globules of that form; it is rather in the form of very small irregular tubercular masses, formed by the adherence of different numbers of the primary globules. The facility with which this sago swells and is divided by water, has occasioned it to be preferred as an article of food to the ancient sago. It has been described by Planche under the name of the white sago of the Moluccas, and by Dr. Pereira under the name of pearl sago.