COOK—THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 313 
fruit is the size of an apricot, globular, and of a greenish-olive colour, and has a thin 
layer of firm edible pulp of an orange colour covering the seed. 
This species is common in the neighbourhood of Paré, where its nearly globular 
crown of drooping feathery leaves is very ornamental. The fruit, though oily and 
bitter, is very much esteemed and is eagerly sought after. It grows on dry soil about 
Para and the Lower Amazon, but it is quite unknown in the interior.¢ 
The native Porto Rican species, Acrocomia media, grows spon- 
taneously in the sparse forests that occupy lands too barren and 
craggy for agricultural use, and the same is true of the Central 
American species, Acrocomia vinifera, in Guatemala and Costa Rica 
(pl. 57). It is possible, however, that these individuals that appear 
to be growing wild have only escaped from cultivation through the 
accidental scattering of the seeds. 
The wine palms are well equipped to establish themselves in the 
vicinity of human habitations. The trunks and leaves are beset 
with sharp, black, needle-like spines, which protect them against graz- 
ing animals, and the crown of leaves formed by the palms while still 
quite young is thick enough to occupy the land and even to with- 
stand fire when clearings are made around it. Even after the palm 
has grown tall enough to expose the trunk the wood is so hard that 
the Indians avoid cutting it unless the palms become so abundant 
as to interfere with the lands they need for their corn or other crops. 
The accounts of the early explorers indicate that the sap of the 
wine palm was in general use as a beverage among the Indians, but 
its popularit’ seems to have greatly declined now that the white 
man’s liquors are obtainable. The palm is cut down to obtain the 
sap, Which continues to flow out of the upper end of the severed trunk 
for several days. 
The wine palms bear spherical fruits which attain a diameter of 
about 13 inches, There is an outer layer of oily pulp with a slightly 
acid flavor, combined with a dense coating of fine fibers, that adhere 
to the wall of the nut inside. The pulp is often eaten by children 
or by adult Indians on the road, though hardly to be reckoned as a 
staple article of diet. The nut itself, without the fibers, is about the 
size of a horse-chestnut, with a hard shell like that of a coconut and 
of about the same thickness. The inclosed kernel is solid and has a 
taste like coconut meat. In times of famine these nuts are extensively 
eaten, but usually they go to waste. It is often proposed to utilize 
them for the extraction of their oil, which is said to be much like that 
of the coconut, but the problem of collecting and cracking the nuts has 
not been solved, unless it be in the Paraguay region of South America. 
It is said that the nuts are cleaned of the fiber by being eaten by 
cattle and that the kernels are becoming an article of export to 
Europe. 
aWallace, A. R., Palm Trees of the Amazon and their Uses, p. 97. 
