Tabemaemontana-Tamus (Sturtevant, 1919)

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Sturtevant, Notes on edible plants, 1919 Tabemaemontana-Tamus (Sturtevant, 1919)

Tanacetum-Terminalia →

Tabemaemontana utilis Am.

Apocynaceae. COW TREE. HYA-HYA.

Guiana. From an incision in the bark is obtained a good flow of thick, white, creamy sap of a rich, nutty flavor, but Brown says a little of it goes a long way. Brandis 9 calls it a thick, sweet, nutritious milk.

Tacca dubia Schult. f.

Taccaceae. TACCA.

Malayan Archipelago. It is used as tacca.

Tacca palmata Blume.

TACCA.

Java. This is one of the taccas of the Malayan Archipelago which furnishes a food-fecula.

Tacca pinnatifida Forst.

PIA. SALEP. TACCA.

Asia and African tropics and islands of Pacific. The tubers of the tacca furnish a mealy nutriment to the inhabitants of the Society Islands and the Moluccas, where the plant is found both wild and in a state of cultivation. In the latter case, the tuberous root loses some of its original acridity and bitterness. The roots are rasped and macerated for four or five days in water and a fecula is separated in the same manner that sago is and, like it, is employed as an article of food by the inhabitants of the Malayan Islands and the Moluccas. In Otaheite, they make cakes of the meal of the tubers. The tubers form an article of diet in China and Cochin China and in Travancore, where they are much eaten, the natives mix agreeable acids with them to subdue their natural pungency. From the tubers, the main supply of the Fiji arrowroot is prepared, and an arrowroot is also made from this plant in the East Indian province of Arracan.

Tacsonia mollissima H. B. & K.

Passifloraceae.

New Granada. In India, says Finninger, this plant bears a great abundance of a pale green fruit of the size of a goose egg and of a rather agreeable flavor.

Tacsonia mixta Juss.

Tropical America. The fruit is edible.

Tacsonia tripartita Juss.

Ecuador. It bears edible fruit.

Tagetes lucida Cav.

Compositae. SWEET MACE.

Mexico. This plant, says Loudon, is much used in Nottinghamshire, England, as an ingredient of soups instead of tarragon. In France, it is grown in the flower garden.

Talauma plumierii DC.

Magnoliaceae.

West Indies. The flowers are used by the distillers of Martinique to sweeten liquors.

Talinum patens Willd.

Portulaceae.

Tropical America. In Brazil, St. Hilaire says the leaves are cooked as are those of purslane.

Talisia olivaeformis Radlk.

Sapindaceae.

New Granada. The fruit is the size and shape of an olive, jet black and of a pleasant taste.

Tamarindus indica Linn.

Leguminosae. TAMARIND.

Asia and tropical Africa. The tamarind furnishes a fruit in southern Asia and middle Africa, which is used for food and is manufactured into cooling drinks. This large tree is planted before the houses in Senegal, Egypt, Arabia and India. The acid pulp in India is used in the preparation of a beer. The seeds or stones in India in times of famine are boiled or fried and then eaten as they are also in Ceylon. Tamarinds form an important ingredient in Indian cookery, especially in curries, and in western India are used in preserving or pickling fish. In Timor, Cunningham saw the fruit exposed in large quantities for sale in the markets, the husk having been taken off and the fruit then dried in the sun.

The West Indian form of T. indica is cultivated for its fruit in the West Indies, the pulp of which is mixed and boiled with sugar and forms an important article of commerce. In Curacao, the natives eat the pulp raw. In Martinique, they eat even the unripe fruit. Fresh tamarinds are occasionally brought to this country. They have an agreeable, sour taste, without any mixture of sweetness. As we usually find them, in the preserved state, they form a dark colored, adhesive mass, consisting of syrup mixed with the pulp, membrane, strings and seeds of the pod. They are of a sweet, acidulous taste. On account of their laxative and refrigerant effect, convalescents often find the pulp a pleasant addition to their diet The tree is very abundant in Jamaica and is grown in the government collection of fruits at Washington.

Tamarix articulata Vahl.

Tamaricaceae.

Arabia, Persia and East Indies. Tamarisk manna is produced on the twigs by the puncture of an insect in parts of the Punjab and in Sind. This manna is chiefly collected during the hot weather and is used medicinally or to adulterate sugar. This plant is said by Prosper Alpinus to be the atle of the Egyptians, written ati by Forskal and atleh by Delile.

Tamarix gallica Linn.

MANNA PLANT.

Europe, Asia and Africa. This species descends in Senegal to the neighborhood of the equator. It is called in Egypt and Fezzan attil and tarfe by the Arabs, whence the name taray of the Spaniards, and tarajol of the Canarians. It supplies a manna in the southern Punjab. Burckhardt states that this manna is used by the Bedouin Arabs near Mt. Sinai with their food. Arnold says, in Persia, the ground beneath the bushes is swept clean and a cotton cloth spread under the branches. The trees are then shaken, the manna collected and made into cakes with sugar or honey and flour. Sweet almonds are sometimes added to the sweetmeat before it is baked.

Tamus communis Linn.

Dioscoreaceae. BLACK BRYONY. MANDRAKE.

Europe, Persia and north Africa. Dioscorides says the young shoots were eaten, and the young shoots are now cooked and eaten in Cyprus. Gerarde says "they are served at men's tables also in our age in Tuscania; others report the like also to be done in Andalusia." The young suckers, in which the acrid principle is not much developed, are eaten as asparagus, as Lindley says, after careful boiling and changing the water. In France, black bryony is grown in the flower gardens.