90 



of obtaining accurate information with regard to its developments 

 The information gathered from the inhabitants is not of much 

 value , they are very unobservant, and the truth of their replies to 

 any questions that may be put to them can never be depended 

 upon. 



The shortest period before the tree puts forth its buds is thirty 

 years, and one hundred years must elapse before it attains its full 

 growth. No one can tell how long it will last, or how old some 

 of the gigantic specimens may be. No nuts planted since the 

 British came into possession have arrived at their full growth. 

 One in the garden at Government House, planted fifteen years 

 ago, is still quite in its infancy, about sixteen feet in height, but 

 with no stem yet visible, the long leaves shooting from the earth 

 like the Traveller's Palm and much resembling them in shape, 

 only much larger. Nine months after the nut has been planted,- 

 supposing germination to have begun at once, the leaf sprouts 

 at an angle of 45° from the root; it is very closely folded, 

 with a smooth hard surface, terminating in a sharp point. 

 When about two feet above the surface it expands, and nine 

 months after another leaf follows, coming up the grooved surface 

 of the midrib of that which preceded it, and so on at intervals of 

 nine months, each succeeding leaf becoming larger in size. All 

 these leaves cluster together and support each other, no stem ap- 

 pearing above the ground. From the age of fifteen to twenty-five 

 the tree is in its greatest beauty, and the leaves at this period 

 much larger than they are subsequently. They consist of two 

 layers of fibres crossing each other at right angles, imbedded in a 

 thick stratum of parenchyma enclosed in a tough skin. 



The stem of the full-grown tree, like that of all Palms, consists 

 of hard fibres imbedded in medullary substance enclosed in a hard 

 sheath, so hard that a good axe is required to cut it. It splits 

 readily, but is extremely durable. Unlike the Cocoa-nut trees, 

 which bend to every gentle gale and are never quite straight, the 

 Coco de mer trees are as upright as iron pillars, undisturbed in 

 their position by the heavy gales and violent storms so often oc- 

 curring in tropical regions. 



At the age of thirty the tree first puts forth its blossoms. The 

 male and female trees are quite distinct ; and the female blossom 

 may be considered as the germ of the nut, as it offers nothing of 

 the appearance of what is generally regard as a blossom. The 

 female tree alone produces the nut, and it is twenty feet shorter 

 than the male tree, which frequently attains a height of one hun- 

 dred feet. 



The male flower is an enormous catkin, about three feet in 

 length and three inches in diameter, of a reddish-brown colour, 

 and covered with rhomboidal valvate scales disposed spirally about 

 the stem, from the angles of which the stamens spring. Within 

 its circumference, at intervals corresponding to the apertures from 

 which the stamens shoot, are found little masses containing such 

 a succession of stamens in progressive stages of development that 

 the flowering is maintained for eight or ten years, each coming. 



