Pandanaceæ

Pandanaceæ, a natural order of endogenous plants, wholly natives of the tropics. They are trees or bushes, often sending down adventitious roots, sometimes weak and decumbent, or climbing. The leaves are imbricated linear-lanceolate and spiny, or pinnate and palmate without spines. The flowers are unisexual, naked, polygamous, or arranged on a spadix, and wholly covering it. The stamens are numerous; the ovaries usually clustered, one-celled, each crowned with a stigma; the fruit consists of fibrous, one-seeded drupes, collected or almost combined, or of berries with many seeds. There are not quite 100 known species. Some are valuable for the fibre of their leaves, some for their edible fruit, &c. See SCREW PINE. The unexpanded leaves of Carludovica palmata furnish the material of which Panama hats are made. The tree which yields Vegetable Ivory (q.v.) is Phytelephas macrocarpa belonging to this order. The flowers of Pandanus odoratissimus are very fragrant; in India they are boiled with meat, and are regarded as aphrodisiac. It is cultivated in some parts of Japan for the sake of the perfume of the flowers, and the adventitious roots are used as substitutes for corks.