Manita

[…] The manita tree,* so named from the singular formation of its flower, a drawing of which is placed as the frontispiece of this book, is a species of plant almost unknown in the catalogues of botanists. Manita means a little hand.

Tradition states, that though the Indians did not actually worship the manita tree, yet they regarded the flower with a sort of religious veneration.

The curious manita, or ‘hand tree,’ near the city of Mexico, is another of these curiosities.

[…] with high walls on every side but open at the top and certainly not exceeding 80 feet square, and this is the botanic garden of the palace of Mexico; a few shrubs and plants and the celebrated manita tree, are all that it contains.

Close by was a plant of the manita, a flower which the Aztecs used to worship ; it is in the form of a hand, with four fingers and a thumb : this they imagined to be the hand of one of their most powerful deities, and adored it ; its colour is a brilliant scarlet.

Here one finds among remedies for every organ and ailment, manita, whose red flower, shaped like thumb and four fingers gives its name “the little hand.”

A sign nailed to a manita tree read “Jardín Botánica.” Edmund surveyed this pathetic place in disbelief. The botanic garden of the Palace of Mexico was cramped, airless, light-starved, and populated with meager, untended specimens — […]