240 E. J. BUTLER. 



tlie leaves wither, and even then they take some time to fall away 

 from the crown. From many enquiries it appears that three years 

 or more may pass from the time when the central shoot dries up 

 until all the leaves have fallen. 



Similarly, the ryots stated that a coconut may be reduced from 

 a fine, healthy, bearing tree to a bare pole in four years. It takes 

 about three months for one of the central leaves to fall after it be- 

 gins to wither. It has been noticed that in rainy or cold weather 

 the leaves die and fall more slowly than during the hot dry parts of 

 the year. 



Recovery of diseased trees after the central shoot or even the 

 greater part of the crown has withered sometimes occurs. In most 

 of the cases observed this is due to the growing point having escaped 

 injury. The parasite, passing in from the outer sheaths, may reach 

 the central shoot at a point above its base and therefore well above 

 the growing point. Usually when this occurs, subsequent exten- 

 sion down the central shoot takes place and the apical bud is des- 

 troyed. In some cases, however, the growth remains horizontal 

 and the central shoot is cut across and breaks off. This is often 

 accompanied by the death of several or even all of the expanded 

 leaves of the crown. The appearance presented by such trees 

 varies with the severity of the first attack. In extreme cases the 

 whole of the expanded leaves of the crown are shed and the palm 

 reduced to a bare pole, the top of which is flattened or even hollow- 

 ed into a cup. From this rises, as if separately planted in this po- 

 sition, a small shoot of a few, usually much reduced and distorted, 

 leaves, with their leaf-bases forming a narro w funnel, at the bottom 

 of which is the growing point. One very characteristic case seen 

 was that of a young palmyra only three feet high, which had lost 

 all its older leaves, leaving the apex of the stem fully exposed and 

 concave. From the centre of the depression rose the new shoot, 

 consisting of three expanded small leaves and a fine central shoot 

 of folded leaf-blades. In another large tree the same conditions 

 were found, but the new shoot, seen from below, appeared to arise 

 laterally from near the margin of the cup-shaped depression and its 



