It is combed out with iron hooks until the rind is all removed.

The fruit is about the size of a small hen's egg, and within its fibrous rind is the seed or so-called nut, the albumen of which is very hard and has a prettily mottled grey and brown appearance.

For water-vessels, &c., they employ gourds and large coco-nut shells, in preparing which they pour in water and allow the pulp or the kernel to decay, so that it may be removed without breaking the rind or shell.

The old idea that it was made from layers or pellicules growing between the rind and a central stalk has been abandoned, as it has been proved that the plant, like other reeds, contains only a cellular pith within the rind.

Palacky replied in his Geschichte des Hussitenthumes rind Professor Leler (Prague, 1868) and Zur bohmischen Geschichtschreibung (Prague, 1871).