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Updated: June 7, 2025
As for the palms, I had no idea that so many varieties existed until I visited Buitenzorg emperor palms, Areca palms, Banka palms, cocoanut palms, fan palms, cabbage palms, sago palms, date palms, feather palms, travelers' palms, oil palms, Chuson palms, climbing palms over a hundred feet long palms without end, Amen.
Among the Berawans of Sarawak, when a woman desires to adopt a grownup man or woman, a great many people assemble and have a feast. The adopting mother, seated in public on a raised and covered seat, allows the adopted person to crawl from behind between her legs. As soon as he appears in front he is stroked with the sweet-scented blossoms of the areca palm and tied to a woman.
This is composed of a leaf or two of betel a plant that possesses a certain narcotic virtue smeared with lime and rolled up round a little tobacco and a piece of areca nut. Both men and women chew these quids with great relish, spitting out the juice from time to time.
For the areca nut is the betel nut. In the Canarese language and the kindred dialects of Malabar it is called by a name which is rendered as adike, or adika, in scientific books, but would stand more chance of being correctly pronounced by the average Englishman if it were spelled uddiky.
Nor was his attention caught by Malate, neither by the cavalry barracks with the spreading trees in front, nor by the inhabitants or their little nipa huts, pyramidal or prismatic in shape, hidden away among the banana plants and areca palms, constructed like nests by each father of a family.
When a great man goes out, he is constantly attended by two or more of them: One of them carries a sword or hanger, the hilt of which is commonly of silver, and adorned with large tassels of horse hair; and another carries a bag which contains betel, areca, lime, and tobacco. In these attendants consists all their magnificence, for the raja himself has no other mark of distinction.
Epsom salts, powdered areca nut and santonin are the remedies commonly recommended for the treatment of intestinal worms. From twenty to forty grains of Epsom salts may be given. Powdered areca nut is recommended in from three to ten grain doses. Santonin may be given in from one to two grain doses. Both the areca nut and santonin may be given with the feed.
Stately Palmyra, slender areca, graceful pandang with a length of scarlet crowning each smooth grey stem, the mighty royal palm, king of the forest, spreading cocoanuts, and a hundred unknown varieties, soaring among bread-fruit and teak, nutmeg and waringen, reveal the inexhaustible powers of tropical Nature.
Dates, pomegranates, and areca nuts cut up and mixed with sugar-paste pinned with cloves into a betel leaf these constituted the dessert. The Arabs ate with strict decorum, according to their custom, beginning the banquet with a Bismillah of thanks and ending with an Al Hamd that signified repletion.
This is the most delicate stem of all the palm tribe; that of a tree of eighty feet in length would not exceed five inches in diameter. Nevertheless, I have never seen an areca palm overturned by a storm; they bow gracefully to the wind, and the extreme elasticity of the wood secures them from destruction. This tree produces the commonly-called "betel-nut," but more properly the areca-nut.
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