l82 STURTEV ant's NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 



for that purpose. It is a common plant in some parts of Scotland, and Lightfoot * says 

 " it is eaten in sallads as an antiscorbutic." It serves as a scurvy grass in Alaska.* 



Cocos australis Mart. Palmae. 



Paraguay. This palm bears a fruit somewhat the shape and size of an acorn, with 

 a pointed tip and is of a beautiful golden-yellow color somewhat tinged or spotted with 

 red when ripe. At maturity, it is soft and pulpy, the flesh yellow, succulent and somewhat 

 fibrous. The flavor is delicious, resembling that of a pineapple.' 



C. butjrracea Linn. f. oil palm, wine palm. 



South America. This is the paltna de vino of the Magdalena. This tree is cut down 

 and a cavity excavated in its trunk near the top. In three days, this cavity is found filled 

 with a yellowish- white juice, very limpid, with a sweet and vinous flavor. During i8 

 or 20 days, the palm-tree wine is daily collected; the last is less sweet but more alcoholic 

 and more highly esteemed. One tree yields as much as 18 bottles of sap, each bottle 

 containing 42 cubic inches, or about three and a quarter gallons.* 



C. coronata Mart. 



Brazil. This species yields a pith, which the Indians n^ke into bread, and a nut from 

 which an oil is extracted.* 



C. nucifera Linn, cocoanut. 



Tropics. The centers of the geographical range of this palm are the islands and 

 countries bordering the Indian and Pacific oceans ^ but it is now extensively cultivated 

 throughout the tropics. About 1330, it was described in India, and quite correctly too, 

 under the name of nargil, by Friar Jordanus.' In 1524, the cocoanut was seen by Pizarro * 

 in an Indian coast village of Peru. In the vicinity of Key West and as far north as Jupiter 

 Inlet, the cocoanut is foimd, having been first introduced about 1840 by the wrecking 

 of a vessel that threw a quantity of these nuts upon the beach. Thirty species of cocoanut 

 are said by Simmonds ' to be described ' and named in the East. Firminger '" mentions 

 ten varieties in India. Captain Cook found several sorts at Batavia. Ellis '' says there 

 are many varieties in Tahiti. The nuts are much used as a food. When the embryo is 

 unformed, the fruit furnishes sweet pakn-milk, a further development supplies a white, 

 sweet and aromatic kernel; it finally becomes still firmer and then possesses a pleasant, 

 sweet oil. In the Fiji Islands, the kernel of the old nut is scraped, pressed through a 

 grater, and the pulp thus formed is mixed with grasses and scented woods and suffered 



' Lightfoot, J. Fl. Scot. 1:343. 1789. 



Dall, W. H. U. S. D. A. Rpt. 187. 1868. {C. fenestrata) 



' Garden 11. 1876. 



'Humboldt, A. rrap. 3:210. 1889. 



'Seemann, B. Pop. Hist. Palms 173. 1856. 



Seemann, B. Pop. Hist. Palms 157. 1856. 



' Jordanus, Fr. Wonders, East 1330. Hakl. Soc. Ed. 15. 1863. 



' Prescott, W. H. Conq. Peru 1:218. i860. 



Simmonds, P. L. Trop. Agr. 229, 230. 1889. 



"Firminger, T. A. C. Card. Ind. 269. 1874. 



"Ellis, W. Polyn. Research. 1:57. 1833. 



