THE COCOA-NUT PALM 



THE cocoa-nut palm (Cocos nucifera) more properly 

 coco, also mentioned under cacao and chocolate, is 

 one of the most useful trees in the world. It is 

 said by the people whom it furnishes with nearly all the 

 necessaries of life that it has as many uses as there are 

 days in the year; but that seems to be an under estimate; 

 for surely three hundred and sixty-five necessities would 

 never meet the demands of a modern up to date man or 

 woman of the temperate zone. The cocoa-nut palm is a 

 magnificent tree often reaching a height of one hundred 



palm plantations. The Malay peninsula is fringed with 

 these graceful trees. They are everywhere over both the 

 East and West Indies and tropical America. The huge 

 triangular nuts are water proof, as though made to 

 navigate the seas and reach every shore, which they 

 surely have done, for on every island and coral islet of 

 the Pacific Ocean they are found. They reach their 

 greatest vigor by the sea ; on the sea-shore they lean to- 

 wards the water as though to send their seed adrift for 

 other lands. The spathe or flower case is of a hard 



THE UNIQUE BEAUTY OF THE COCOANUT PALM MAY BE FULLY APPRECIATED IN ITS NATIVE HOME, CEYLON, WHERE IT 



FRINGES A HUNDRED MILES OF SEACOAST 



feet and crowned with wide-spreading fronds often 

 twenty feet in length. The frond consists of a strong 

 mid-rib which terminates ill long slender leaflets, giving 

 the entire frond the appearance of a gigantic feather. 

 Among the massive leaves growing from the main stem 

 is the fruit, usually in clusters of from ten to twenty nuts, 

 from eight to twelve inches in length and from six to 

 eight inches in diameter. This palm is so generally 

 spread over the tropical world that its original habitation 

 is not known. It luxuriates in the sea air, and abounds 

 along the east and west coasts of Southern India. The 

 west coast of Ceylon from Colombo southward for over 

 one hundred miles is a dense wilderness of cocoa-nut 



woody substance from four to five feet in length, and 

 when this case bursts to release the blossom it is like 

 the report of a gun. I first heard the bursting of cocoa- 

 nut flower cases when hunting in the jungles of the 

 Amazon. I asked my Indian guide if there were other 

 hunters near. Of course he replied: "The bursting of 

 cocoa-nut flower buds." These huge flower cases are 

 tapped at the base for the sweet sap they contain. The 

 sap is boiled down into an excellent sugar; it is fer- 

 mented into arrack, the apple-jack of the tropics. The 

 flower bursts out in branching spikes five and six feet in 

 length. The flower stalk when dried is used for torches ; 

 the leaf stalk for fencing, the leaves for thatch, for 



529 



