The seeds or nuts form a chief ingredient in the celebrated eastern masticatory called Pan and which seems to owe its stimulating properties to the leaves of the Piper Betel.  When prepared for use, the nut is cut into slices and wrapped in the fresh leaves of the betel pepper vine, together with a quantity of quicklime (Chunam) to give it a flavor.  The flavor is peculiar, between an herbaceous and an aromatic taste.

All classes, male and female, chew it; they say it sweetens the breath, strengthens the stomach, and preserves the teeth, to which it gives a reddish hue; there is probably less objection to its use than tobacco or opium, and its taste is more pleasant; but, if taken to excess, it will produce stupor like other narcotics, and even intoxication.  The nuts grow in large bunches at the top, and when ripe are red and have a beautiful appearance; they resemble the nutmeg in shape and color, but are larger and harder.  When gathered they are laid in heaps until the shell be somewhat rotted, and then dried in the sun, after which the process of shelling commences.  The trees vary in their yield from 300 to 1,000 nuts, averaging about 14 lbs.; which the cultivators sell at about half a dollar (2s.) a picul of 133 lbs.  As these palms are planted usually at the distance of 71/2 feet, it follows that the produce of an acre is about 10,841 lbs.  The tree bears but once in a year generally, but there are green nuts enough to eat all the year long.  Betel nut is a staple article of import into China; 25,000 piculs annually is the amount returned, but there is an immense quantity imported in Chinese junks from Hainan, of which there is no account kept.  In the single port of Canton alone, 15,565 piculs were imported in 1844, and about 400 to Ningpo. 3,005 piculs of betel nuts, valued at 8,700 dollars, were imported into Canton in 1850, and as much as 4,000 tons of areca nuts are shipped annually from Ceylon.

The astringent extract obtained from the seeds of the Areca-palm constitutes two (or perhaps more) kinds of the catechu of the shops.  According to Dr. Heyne ("Tracts Hist. and Statist. on India"), it is largely procured in Mysore, about Sirah, in the following manner:—­

The nuts are taken as they come from the tree and boiled for some hours in an iron vessel.  They are then taken out, and the remaining water is inspissated by continual boiling.  This process furnishes Kassu, or most astringent terra japonica, which is black and mixed with paddy criu, husks, and other impurities.  After the nuts are dried, they are put into a fresh quantity of water, boiled again; and this water being inspissated, like the former, yields the best or dearest kind of catechu, called Coony.  It is yellowish brown, has an earthy fracture, and is free from the admixture of foreign bodies.

Most of the betel nuts imported into China come from Java, Singapore, and Pinang.  Betel nut is not