2 74 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



The coco-palm exists in English hothouses, but, 

 although easily raised from the nut, especially from one 

 that has begun to germinate while upon the voyage, it is 

 difficult to preserve beyond eight or ten years. Two fine 

 young plants at Kew give better promise than usual. At 

 Syon, in 1863, a ripe nut was obtained, this by means 

 of hand-fertilization. 



JUVIAS (Bertholettia excelsa). 



JUVIAS, in the shops commonly called "Brazil-nuts," 

 sometimes " Para-nuts," and in their native country also 

 " Castanha-nuts," are the produce of one of the most 

 majestic trees of the South American tropical forests. 

 The stature attained is from a hundred to a hundred and 

 fifty feet ; the smooth and cylindrical trunk is two, three, 

 or four feet in diameter, and nearly bare till near the 

 top, where it distributes its magnificent crown of boughs. 

 The leaves, crowded at the extremities of the branches, 

 are about two feet long, and six inches in width, bright 

 green above, inclined to be silvery below. The cream- 

 coloured flowers, formed of six unequal petals, are 

 followed, not by the nuts, as exhibited for sale, but by 

 globular capsules, resembling cannon-balls, six to twelve 

 inches in diameter. Inside of these, the so-called " nuts," 

 properly the seeds, are arranged after the manner of the 

 carpels of an orange, only that there are two distinct 

 tiers of them, an upper and a lower, the sharp extremities 



