44 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



Used lily pads instead. 

 And I believe, in times of peace, 



From wild wood depths they'd get 

 The wax-like sprays of Indian pipe 



And smoke the calumet. 



The Architecture of the Coco Palm 



(Cocos nucifera) 

 Elmer Eugene Barker 



We were sitting. on the tile-paved piazza of my Porto Rican 

 home, my friend and I, sipping our after-dinner coffee and gazing 

 at the distant mountains. Here and there a royal palm graced 

 the landscape, stately and dignified but as stereotyped as a figure 

 printed on chintz. Close at hand a coco palm raised aloft its 

 tuft of plumes, now silhouetted against a glowing sunset sky. 



I remarked to my friend that my admiration and love for this 

 beautiful tree was constantly deepening. It was he who called 

 my attention then to features of its construction that have lead 

 me further to study it. Thus, to what was at first merely an 

 admiration of its aesthetic qualities, has now been added an 

 appreciation of its structural attributes. Altogether my ap- 

 preciation and admiration have increased with knowledge and 

 familiarity until I wonder if the Creator could have made a more 

 perfect thing. Surely, a scientific knowledge of detail and structure 

 of a natural object need not rob it of romance and charm, but 

 should, rather, enhance the marvel of its being. 



To me it is a thing of glorious beauty, whether tossing and 

 waving in the breezes or brooding motionless in the breathless 

 moments of a tropic calm, — whether gilded by the rising sun or 

 silhouetted against a sunset sky, — glistening in the fullness of the 

 noonday's sun or gleaming in the moonlight, — or even rustling 

 and dripping in a downpour of rain, — at all times equally beautiful 

 and always manifesting a variety of mood and expression. 



Of its varied usefulness we shall, perhaps, speak in another 

 article,— how it furnishes food and wherewithal to millions of 

 people who live in the tropical belt of Earth. Here let us examine 



