COCOA-NUTS. 215 



CHAPTER XXII. 



COCOA-NUTS. 



The cocoa-nut palm is one of^the most valuable trees 

 given to the world by a most beneficent Creator, and its 

 history and wide-spread capabilities are so full of interest, 

 especially to those who can proudly point to this great tree 

 rising heavenward upon their own domains, that it is well 

 worth while to pause and look upon it in its broader view 

 before proceeding to examine the narrower one of its prac- 

 tical culture. 



Throughout all the broad extent of the vegetable king- 

 dom, there is no one family of plants so full of beauty, 

 usefulness, and majesty as the family of the palms. Their 

 prevailing form is familiar to every one, for no trees are 

 so often pictured as these, with their leafless, cylindrical 

 stems or stipes, as they are termed, surmounted by a crown 

 of graceful, tapering leaves. 



It may not be generally known that this distinguished 

 family (like many human ones) receives its name from one 

 of its most diminutive members, the dwarf fan-palm, the 

 only one indigenous to Europe. 



With this graceful little tree the Romans were well ac- 

 quainted, and from them it received the name of palma, 

 from the resemblance of its fan-shaped leaves to the human 

 hand. Afterward, when its numerous relatives became 

 more widely known, the great similitude of their leaves 

 caused the name of palma or palm to be bestowed upon 

 them all, as the common surname of the whole family. 



That many of these are as yet totally "unknown to 

 fame " is not to be doubted ; each year come the tidings 

 of the discovery of some "new palm," and while nearly 



