TREES OF THE TROPICAL FOREST. 133 



I had to shoot them down with my gun. My most 

 refreshing drink was the water of the cocoas, which I 

 drew through small holes clipped in the shells. Their 

 leaves covered my roof, from the leaf stalks I trimmed 

 out very good fishing poles, and from the inner bark 

 around the stems I made hats and caps. Crusoe did 

 not think of this lace bark, when he was seeking for 

 material for a sieve, or he might have made it answer 

 well. ' 



There were other palms on the fringe of the forest, 

 of a different species and genus, for while the cocoa 

 is known as the nut bearer {Cocos nucifera\ the 

 others are the seed bearers, having great clusters of 

 seedlike nuts, from which a kind of butter is made. 

 They are the Acrocomia fusiformis of the botanists, 

 and by the natives called grugru palms, with spindle- 

 shaped stems and dense prickly heads of long leaves. 

 Their boles are generally covered with vines hung 

 with great perforated leaves, and they are quite as 

 attractive, though in a different way, as the cocoas. 



There were cocoas along the shore, grugrus at the 

 foothills, mountain palms interspersed throughout the 

 forest, and the mighty palmistes towering above them 

 all. The last, sometimes one hundred and fifty feet 

 in height, were pre-eminent, the queens among the 

 Palmacce^ grand and regal, the crowns of some of 

 them rising far above the forest level, Kke emerald 

 diadems. 



There are in these forests two dozen kinds of 

 trees that yield timber and cabinet woods, besides the 

 palms, and the shrubs that give dyes and useful arti- 



