4o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



great variety of dishes, oil is made from them, the outside hulls are used 

 for scouring and for fiber utilized in many ways, the bases of the 

 fronds and the hulls are used for firewood, the trunks are used for 

 skids for drawing their jangadas from the water, and the leaves are 

 used for thatching the houses and for torches at night. 



One of the Brazilian methods of using the coco nut in cooking is 

 well worthy the attention of caterers. I refer to the use of the ripe nut 

 in preparing codfish d la creme. To make this dish the codfish is pre- 

 pared in the usual way, except that the juice of the coco nut is used 

 to fiavor it. The ripe nut is grated on a piece of rough tin made like 

 a large nutmeg grater; the milk is then squeezed from the grated nut, 

 the dry fibrous material is rejected and the white rich milk is poured 

 in the cooking fish, furnishing both the oil and a delicious flavor for 

 the dish. 



It is somewhat remarkable that 'coprah,' the dried kernel of the 

 coco, is not prepared in Brazil. The reason probably is that there 

 has always been a home market for the nuts. 



The young coco trees begin to bear when six or seven years old and 

 yield fruits for more than eighty years. It is said that a coco palm 

 yields more than two hundred nuts a year * — a statement which I feel 

 obliged to accept with allowances. 



In speaking of the foods furnished by the palm, I am reminded to 

 mention an instance where a portion of the trunk is thus used. One 

 palmetto is known in English as the 'cabbage palm' because the tender 

 phylophore, or growing end of the trunk, is extensively eaten in Brazil 

 as a vegetable, very much as cabbage is eaten. In the forests near the 

 large cities these palmettos have been almost destroyed owing to the 

 demand for them in the vegetable markets. I am of the opinion that 

 many of the palms could be utilized in the same manner, and it may 

 be that they are so used among the native aboriginal races. The using 

 of these stems for food is open to the evident objection that once the 

 growing bud is cut off the tree is destroyed. 



The Uhussu. — One of the strangest palms in the world is what is 

 known in the Amazonas valley as the uhussu, the Manicaria saccifera of 

 botanists. This palm is one of a few having an entire leaf. 



Every one is familiar with the fact that the leaves or fronds of 

 palms are, in general, either palmate or pinnate. Our common Florida 

 palms, for instance, have the fronds palmate or radiating from the 

 outer end of a petiole; in the pinnate fronds there is a long midrib or 

 petiole running the length of the frond and along two sides of this the 

 leaflets are arranged. 



* '0 Coqueiro da India.' Pelo Dr. J. M. da Silva Continho, Rio de Janeiro, 

 1889, p. 2. 



