279. Maranta arundinacea.—The arrowroot plant, cultivated for its starch. The tubers being reduced to pulp with water, the fecula subsides, and is washed and dried for commerce. It is a very pure kind of starch, and very nutritious. The term arrowroot is said to be derived from the fact that the natives of the West Indies use the roots of the plant as an application to wounds made by poison arrows.
280. Mauritia flexuosa.—The Moriche, or Ita palm, very abundant on the banks of the Amazon, Rio Negro, and Orinoco Rivers. In the delta of the latter it occupies swampy tracts of ground, which are at times completely inundated, and present the appearance of forests rising out of the water. These swamps are frequented by a tribe of Indians called Guaranes, who subsist almost entirely upon the produce of this palm, and during the period of the inundations suspend their dwellings from the tops of its tall stems. The outer skin of the young leaves is made into string and cord for the manufacture of hammocks. The fermented sap yields palm wine, and another beverage is prepared from the young fruits, while the soft inner bark of the stem yields a farinaceous substance like sago.
281. Maximiliana regia.—An Amazonian palm called Inaja. The spathes are so hard that, when filled with water, they will stand the fire, and are sometimes used by the Indians as cooking utensils. The Indians who prepare the kind of rubber called bottle rubber, make use of the hard stones of the fruit as fuel for smoking and drying the successive layers of milky juice as it is applied to the mold upon which the bottles are formed. The outer husk, also, yields a kind of saline flour used for seasoning their food.
282. Melaleuca minor.—A native of Australia and the islands of the Indian Ocean. The leaves, being fermented, are distilled, and yield an oil known as cajuput or cajeput oil, which is green, and has a strong aromatic odor. It is valuable as an antispasmodic and stimulant, and at one time had a great reputation as a cure for cholera. In China the leaves are used as a tonic in the form of decoction.
283. Melicocca bijuga.—This sapindaceous tree is plentiful in tropical America and the West Indies, and is known as the Genip tree. It produces numerous green egg-shaped fruits, an inch in length, possessing an agreeable vinous and somewhat aromatic flavor, called honey berries or bullace plums. The wood of the tree is hard and heavy.
284. Melocactus communis.—Commonly called the Turk's Cap cactus, from the flowering portion on the top of the plant being of a cylindrical form and red color, like a fez cap. Notwithstanding that they grow in the most dry sterile places, they contain a considerable quantity of moisture, which is well known to mules, who resort to them when very thirsty, first removing the prickles with their feet.
285. Mesembryanthemum crystallinum.—The ice plant, so called in consequence of every part of the plant being covered with small watery pustules, which glisten in the sun like fragments of ice. Large quantities of this plant are collected in the Canaries and burned, the ashes being sent to Spain for the use of glass makers. M. edule is called the Hottentot's fig, its fruit being about the size of a small fig, and having a pleasant, acid taste when ripe. M. tortuosum possesses narcotic properties, and is chewed by the Hottentots to induce intoxication. The fruits possess hygrometric properties, the dried, shriveled, capsules swelling out and opening so as to allow of the escape of the seeds when moistened by rain, which at the same time fits the soil for their germination.
286. Mikania guaco.—A composite plant which has gained some notoriety as the supposed Cundurango, the cancer-curing bark. It has long been supposed to supply a powerful antidote for the bite of venomous serpents.
287. Mimusops balata.—The Bully tree. This sapotaceous plant attains a great size in Guiana and affords a dense, close-grained, valuable timber. Its small fruits, about the size of coffee berries, are delicious when ripe. The flowers also yield a perfume when distilled in water, and oil is expressed from the seeds.
288. Mimusops elengi.—A native of Ceylon, where its hard, heavy, durable timber is used for building purposes. The seed also affords a great amount of oil.