Betel leaf

“ Betel (pronounced beetle) is the leaf of a climbing plant, into which they roll a morsel of areca nut and lime. The whole is made up into a parcel and munched, but not swallowed. This does not sound elegant; neither is the thing. It is one of the minor trials of life to have to sit through the process.
We took a leaf or two, but explained that it was not our custom to eat it; and then we answered questions straight off for ten minutes. "What is your Caste?" "Chee!" in a tone of remonstrance, "don't you see she is white? Married or widow? Why no jewels? ”

“ Every sort of prepared betel, ginta lalat, or prepared betel, made up in rolls of many dozen of folds, posies of champaka flowers stuffed into each other; melor or jasmine flowers set in pots, betel leaf folded every variety of ways, too numerous to be mentioned. ”

“ On the top of the Tree among the Branches the Betel-Nut [281] grows on a tough stem, as big as a Man’s Finger, in clusters much as the Coco-Nuts do, and they grow 40 or 50 in a cluster. This Fruit is bigger than a Nutmeg, and is much like it, but rounder. It is much used all over the East-Indies. Their way is to cut it in four pieces, and wrap one of them up in an Arek-leaf, which they spread with a soft Paste made of Lime or Plaster, and then chew it altogether. Every Man in these parts carries his Lime-Box by his side, and dipping his Finger into it, spreads his Betel and Arek leaf with it. ”

“ These women are allowed even to enter the presence of the wives of the king, and they stay with them and eat betel with them, a thing which no other person may do, no matter what his rank may be. This betel is a herb which a leaf like the leaf of the pepper, or the ivy of our country; they always eat this leaf, and carry it in their mouths with another fruit called areca. ”

“ The Arek is a small Tree or Shrub, of a green Bark, and the Leaf is long and broader than a Willow. They are packt up to sell into Parts that have them not, to chew with the Betel. The Betel-Nut is most esteemed when it is young, and before it grows hard, and then they cut it only in two pieces with the green Husk or Shell on it. ”

“ Chamærops humilis.—This is the only European species of palm, and does not extend farther north than Nice. The leaves are commonly used in the south of Europe for making hats, brooms, baskets, etc. From the leaf fiber a material resembling horse hair is prepared, and the Arabs mix it with camel's hair for their tent covers.
110. Chavica betel.—This plant is found all over the East Indies, where its leaf is largely used by Indian natives as a masticatory. Its consumption is immense, [14] and has been said to equal that of tobacco by Western peoples. ”

“ So important a part does the betel-nut play in the daily life of the native, that, if possible, a house is always built near a grove of areca-palms, in order that there may be a never-failing supply of the nut. Betel is not eaten alone, but with a mixture of turmeric, seri-leaf, lime, and tobacco. Chewing betel produces copious supplies of blood-red saliva. If this is ejected upon wood or stone, it leaves nasty rusty-red stains that cannot be removed even by the most diligent scrubbing. Hence a spittoon is a very necessary domestic article. Everybody chews; everybody possesses spittoons. ”

“ The spirit drawn from the leaves of an aromatic tree which grows in Kashmir, called Bed-Mushk; it is a tonic and exhilarating.
[121] A humble deportment when addressing superiors in India; and through complaisance, used sometimes to equals.
[122] An act of ceremony ever observed amongst the well-bred in India, when a visitor takes leave. 'Itr is the essence of any flower, more especially of the rose (by us corruptly called "otto of roses") ; and betel is a preparation of the aromatic leaf so generally used in the East, more especially in India. ”

“ See also Abdurrazzāk, in India in XV. Cent., p. 32.
1498.—In Vasco da Gama's Roteiro, p. 59, the word used is atombor, i.e. al-tambūl (Arab.) from the Skt. tāmbūla. See also Acosta, p. 139. [See TEMBOOL.]
1510.—"This betel resembles the leaves of the sour orange, and they are constantly eating it."—Varthema, p. 144.
1516.—"We call this betel Indian leaf." [42] —Barbosa, 73.
[1521.—"Bettre (or vettele) ." See under ARECA.]
1552.—"... at one side of the bed ... stood a man ... who held in his hand a gold plate with leaves of betelle...."—De Barros, Dec. I. liv. iv. cap. viii. ”

“ I have seen palm-trees in the South Sea islands, many kinds in the forests of South America, and in India; but, of the whole tribe, the betel-nut palm is certainly the most elegant and beautiful. Dr. Hooker likens it "to an arrow shot from heaven, raising its graceful head and feathery crown in luxuriance and beauty above the verdant slopes." A tree will produce 300 nuts in the year, and continues to bear for twenty-five years. The nut is very hard, the size of a cherry, and is chewed by all the natives of India with the leaves of the betel-pepper (Chavica betel) spread with chunam. ”

“ The Star of Bethlehem is a plant in which the white and green of the leaf is curiously repeated in the flower. Gardeners seldom admit this flower now to their gardens, it so quickly crowds out everything else; it has become on Long Island nothing but a weed. The high-growing Star of Bethlehem is a pretty thing. A bed of it in my sister's garden is shown on page 237.
It is curious that when all agree that green flowers have no beauty and scant charm, that a green flower should have been one of the best-loved flowers of my home garden. ”

“ Nut minute, oval or obovoid, compressed, bearing at the apex the persistent stigmas, marked at the base by a small pale scar, the outer coat of the shell produced into a marginal wing interrupted at the apex.
Betula is widely distributed from the Arctic circle to Texas in the New World, and to southern Europe, the Himalayas, China, and Japan in the Old World, some species forming great forests at the north, or covering high mountain slopes. Of the twenty-eight or thirty species now recognized twelve are found in North America ”

“ The “canoe-birch” is not the only species of these trees found in North America. The genus Betula (so called from the Celtic word batu, which means birch) has at least half-a-dozen other known representatives in these parts. There is the “white birch” (Betula populifolia) , a worthless tree of some twenty feet in height, and less than six inches diameter. The bark of this species is useless, and its wood, which is soft and white, is unfit even for fuel. It grows, however, in the poorest soil. ”

“ With the enormous demand for it as a salivatory, as also as an article of medicine, it might, had the natives the slightest turn for cultivation, yield a large profit as an article of commerce. The Betel shrub is also found in large quantities in these islands, and needs but little looking after.
The wealth of the forest in ornamental timber, and wood fit for building purposes, is so great that, if carefully surveyed and judiciously thinned, they would not only furnish the settler with cleared soil suitable for cultivation, but would likewise permit an immense profit to be realized. ”

“ The fact that the brake does not mature its seeds that lie under the leaf margin until late summer also insures it a long season of sightliness, and when ripeness finally draws nigh, it comes in a series of beautiful mellow shades, varying from straw through deep gold to russet, such as the beech tree chooses for its autumn cloak. ”

“ Of exotic species the European and Asiatic Betula pendula Roth. in a number of forms is a common ornamental tree in the northern states, where several of the Birch-trees of eastern Asia also flourish. Many of the species produce wood valued by the cabinet-maker, or used in the manufacture of spools, shoe-lasts, and other small articles. The thin layers of the bark are impervious to water and are used to cover buildings, and for shoes, canoes, and boxes. ”

“ A species so like the preceding (Betula lenta) as to be best described by stating the differences. Leaves and bark are much less aromatic. Leaves 3 to 5 in. long, not so often nor so plainly heart-shaped at base, usually narrowed; less bright green above, and more downy beneath; more coarsely serrate. Fruit not so long, and more ovate, with much larger and thinner scales, the lobes hardly spreading. A large tree, 50 to 90 ft. high, with yellowish or silvery-gray bark peeling off into very thin, filmy layers from the trunk. ”

“ Leaves all on long petioles, mostly once or twice or even three times divided into spreading lobes, long and narrow when few, shorter when more divided, obtuse or with short points, the whole leaf including the petiole from a few in. to above 1 ft. long, the lowest leaves as in the allied species usually entire. Flowering stems long and leafless, usually branched, the flowers small and distant. Perianth more incurved than in other species, not exceeding 2 lines, Stigma anteriorly produced on each side into a broad semicircular auricle or short broad lobe. ”

“ Their shining bronze color renders it easy to discover and watch them at their destructive work. They begin gnawing an unsightly hole into either the side or top of the bursting leaf bud, often boring into the bud so far as to be almost hidden from view. It usually takes the beetles a few days to satisfy their vigorous spring appetites; then they turn their attention to the propagation of their kind. The later emerging adults feed voraciously on the foliage (Pl. I, Fig. 5) eating out irregular places in the leaves. ”

“ Climbing up a small tree in front of the house is a fine Betel vine, which is watered every day during the dry weather. We notice that a bleached skull of a bull is fixed among the leaves to guard the creeper from the unlucky glance of the “Evil Eye,” which might cause its premature decay. In the damper ground adjoining the rice field a few slender Areka palms are growing, with their clusters of small fruit hanging below their leafy crowns.
On the outer side of the village, near the embankment of the tank, there are the large, rough-stemmed Tamarind trees that we noticed as we came. ”

“ Flowers in May.
The name Betula is the old Latin designation for this tree.
The Alder (Alnus glutinosa) .
The Alder, of which we have but one species, is own cousin to the Birch, but we must not seek it in similar situations. The Birch loves the breezy hillside, the Alder prefers the swampy valley, the pond and river-side, its tastes being more thoroughly aquatic even than those of the Willows. ”

“ The leaves were falling in brown dry showers in the Rectory garden, the chrysanthemums were nearly over, the dahlias blackened and blighted by the first frosts. A few pale blooms still clung to the gaunt hollyhock stems; here and there camomile flowers, "medicine daisies" Betty used to call them when she was little, their whiteness tarnished, showed among bent dry stalks of flowers dead and forgotten. Round Betty's window the monthly rose bloomed pale and pink amid disheartened foliage. ”

“ Being one of the hardiest of spring vegetables, the seed may be sown as early in the spring as the ground can be worked. A light, sandy soil is the best on which to grow Beets to perfection, but any well tilled garden soil will raise satisfactory crops. On heavy soil the turnip Beet gives the best results, as the growth is nearly all at or above the surface. The long varieties, having tapering roots running deep into the soil, are apt to be misshapen [37] unless the physical condition of the soil is such that the roots meet with little obstruction. ”

“ If we look at such a cluster of leaves directly from in front, we shall see that they generally appear somewhat to overlap; but it must be remembered that in temperate regions the sun is never vertical. Moreover, while alternate leaves are more convenient in such an arrangement as that of the beech, where there would be no room for a second leaf, it is more suitable in such cases as the sycamores and maples that the leaves should be opposite, because, if, other things remaining the same, the leaves of the sycamore were alternate, the sixth leaf would require an inconvenient length of petiole. ”

“ Beets make a strong draft on some components of the soil, and it is a common experience that they should not be grown year after year for a long period, but should take their place in a rotation, in the course of which one or two crops of beets should be followed by a crop of grain, and that if possible by a leguminous plant like alfalfa or an annual legume like burr clover used for pasturage, and then to beets again. Beets improve soil for grain, because of the deep running of the root, and because beet culture is not profitable without deep plowing and continuous summer cultivation. ”

“ Accordingly, just as a rootstock, or a tuber, or a tendril is a kind of stem, so a bud-scale, or a bulb-scale, or a cotyledon, or a petal of a flower, is a kind of leaf. Even in respect to ordinary leaves, it is natural to use the word either in a wider or in a narrower sense; as when in one sense we say that a leaf consists of blade and petiole or leaf-stalk, and in another sense say that a leaf is petioled, or that the leaf of Hepatica is three-lobed. ”

“ Artemisia Abrotanum, arborescens, and tridentata.*—Useful shrubs of grey tone.
Aucuba japonica and varieties.*
Azara microphylla* and A. dentata.
Berberis Aquifolium,* Darwinii, vulgaris, nepalensis. Single specimens of B. Aquifolium, the Mahonia, become very ornamental with age. [Pg 177]
Betula alba* (the Silver Birch) .—A very hardy tree, beautiful both in summer and winter. The pendulous variety is the best. Its branches are proof against all winds. No tree is so well adapted for planting close up to houses in the city, for it is very graceful, and obscures little light. ”