594 



A. JEJ. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 



Although much like the Palmetto of the southern United States, 

 it differs in several important particulars. It grows larger; its fruit 

 is larger, more abundant, succulent, and edible ; it is blackish in 

 color, and about as large as a large cherry. Sometimes the clusters 

 of berries are four feet long, and contain a large number of berries. 



Full grown palmettoes, even now, may become fifty feet high, 

 with a spreading crown of leaves twentj'-five to thirty feet across. 

 The larger leaves may have a fan or blade eight feet or more long 

 and nearly as wide, supported on a petiole or stem six to ten feet 

 long. But most of those now growing are comparatively young, 

 and mostly less than twenty feet high. 



Figure 39. — Bermuda Palmetto, moonlight effect. 



Governor Lefroy, in 1817 (Memorials, ii, p. 70, note), said that 

 one then growing in the Pembroke Marsh was fifty-three feet high, 

 with a clear trunk forty-seven feet high, to the lowest leaves. 



When growing in good soil in open land the trunk is sometimes 

 three to four feet in circumference, and usually not more than t went v 

 to twenty-five feet high, to the leaves. In the marshes it grows 

 taller and more slender, the circumference seldom being over twenty- 

 four to thirty inches. In dry places the trunk is irregular, with 

 larger and smaller portions, varying according to the degree of dry- 

 ness of different summers. The rays of the fan-like leaves run out 

 into long, slender, flexible, drooping tips, when fully mature. 



