296 COCOA-NUT TREE. 



top the more diminutive trees, and excite the 

 admiration of the traveller by their elegant 

 and novel appearance, decorating the sea-coasts 

 of large continents, and waving their dark 

 plumes over the insignificant coral-reefs. The 

 cylindrical rough trunk* towers to an elevation 

 of one hundred feet, and the terminating crown 

 of feathered fronds gives to them an elegant ap- 

 pearance, more so when seen loaded with fruit in 

 all its different stao-es, from the first burstino- 

 of the spathe displaying the delicate white fruit 

 and minute flowers, to the huge, fully mature 

 nut, in bunches of from twenty to thirty, or 

 more, the ponderous burthen appearing to be 

 suspended on a very fragile stalk. 



The fecundity of the palms is surprising ; a 

 single spathe of the date is said to contain about 

 twelve thousand male flowers ; Alfonsia amyg- 

 dalina has been computed to have two hundred 

 and seven thousand in a spathe, or six hundred 

 thousand upon a single individual, while every 

 bunch of the Seje-palm of the Orinoco bears 

 eight thousand fruit. f On the cocoa-palm, fre- 

 quently two or three hundred nuts may be 



* The fronds of the palms every year throw oft" those of 

 the year preceding, and it is the bases of the old fronds that 

 form the rough bark. 



f Lindley's Nat. Syst. of Botany. 



