The root is coarse, large, but wanting
in fine flavor, although the young tubers are exceedingly tender
and delicate. This is the favorite food of elephants on the
Ceylon mountains; but it is a curious fact that they invariably
reject the leaves, which any one would suppose would be their
choicest morsel, as they are both succulent and plentiful. The
elephants simply use them as a handle for tearing up the roots,
which they bite off and devour, throwing the leaves on one side.
The wild parsnip is also indigenous to the plains on the
mountains. As usual with most wild plants of this class, it has
little or no root, but runs to leaf. The seeds are very highly
flavored, and are gathered by the natives for their curries.
There is, likewise, a beautiful orchidaceous plant, which is very
common throughout the patinas on the mountains, and which
produces the very finest quality of arrowroot. So much is this
valued in the Nepaul country in India, that I have been assured
by a person well acquainted with that locality, that this
quality of arrowroot is usually sold for its weight in rupees.
In vain have I explained this to the Cingalese; they will not
attempt its preparation because their fathers did not eat it; and
yet these same men will walk forty miles to cut a bundle of
sticks of the galla gaha tree for driving buffaloes! -their
fathers did this, and therefore they do it.
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