The Areka palm is the _Areka catechu_ of botanists; it is a palm of elegant growth, rising with a very erect and small stem to the height of forty or even sixty feet, the summit terminating in a tuft of dark-green foliage; the circumference of the trunk is seldom more than one-and-a-half to two feet, when of early growth of dark-green, and when old of a dark-grey colour; the circles formed by the clasping petioles of the fronds being very visible upon it: the tree bears fruit only once during the year, at which period the tree, with its long bunches of orange oval-shaped fruit, pendent from the upper part of the trunk, contrasted by the dark-green foliage, has a beautiful appearance. The Areka-nut, when planted, takes three years to arrive at a sufficient size to produce fruit; the wood of this palm is used at this place for a variety of purposes. The fruit grows in long pendulous clusters, each about the size of a small hen’s egg; the external covering is thick, fibrous, covered by an orange-coloured epidermis; and on the thick fibrous husk being cleared away, the nut is discovered surrounded by its own immediate epidermis, which often proves difficult of removal. The nut is conical, but varies in some, having an elevated apex and small base, and others a large base and very slightly elevated apex. One nut is the natural produce of each fruit, although sometimes double or triple nuts are found, anomalies often met with in the vegetable kingdom.[155] Many of the common drinking and baling utensils in the boats are made from the spathe of the Areka palm; and I have frequently seen a vessel for holding water made from it, which was not dissimilar to those made by the Australian natives from the bark of the Eucalypti trees; they use the flower spathe also for nailing upon the bottoms of their boats. May, June, and July, are the months for collecting the nuts. They had loaded nine ships this season; but forty vessels, of all sizes, have been freighted in one season, for Pinang, &c., from whence it is exported to China, Madras, and other parts of continental India. The nuts vary in size; their quality, however, does not at all depend upon this property, but upon their internal appearance when cut, intimating the quantity of astringent matter contained in them. If the white, or medullary portion, which intersects the red or astringent part be small, has assumed a bluish tinge, and the astringent part is very red, the nut is considered of good quality; but when the medullary portion is in large quantity, the nut is considered more mature, and not possessing so much astringency, is not esteemed so valuable.