216 FLORIDA FRUITS COCOA-NUTS. 



six hundred members have been introduced into the botan- 

 ical world, and a Christian name bestowed upon each, it is 

 the opinion of our savants that the entire family numbers 

 at least one thousand individuals, each generous palm 

 holding forth some "good and perfect gift" for man's ac- 

 ceptance. 



Of this royal race there are two which are pre-eminently 

 familiar to the world at large, owing to the commercial value 

 of their products ; these are the date and cocoa-nut trees. 



Of these two palms it is difficult to determine to which 

 belongs the higher rank ; in genealogy, the date-palm un- 

 doubtedly has the advantage; it is the "palm tree" of 

 Scripture, and from time immemorial has been an honored 

 dweller in its native lands, Asia and Africa. But on the 

 contrary, over the birth-place of the cocoa-nut there hangs 

 a strange mystery ; the only palm indigenous to both hem- 

 ispheres, and having a wider geographical range than any 

 other member of its family, yet neither in the East or 

 West has its place of nativity been clearly proven. 



In the earliest reference to the cocoa-nut palm one hun- 

 dred and sixty-one years B. c. we find it mentioned as 

 growing in Ceylon, upon whose shores its nuts had been 

 cast by the friendly ocean waves. 



But whence came they, from the main land of India or 

 the far-off continent of America? This is a question that 

 must forever remain unanswered ; but fortunately for man- 

 kind the mystery of its birth detracts in nothing from the 

 usefulness of this tree, which may well be called the 

 "Ocean Palm." 



Down upon the wave-washed coast, with the salt spray 

 dashing over its stem and leaves and lashing its roots, the 

 cocoa-nut loves to dwell ; remove it inland, where the sea- 

 breeze can not play among its leaves, and it will droop and 

 languish. 



