*18 NUTRITIVE PLANTS. 



SECTION XVI. 



Cocoa, 

 Cocos. Linn. 



The cocoa-tree is a native of very warm climates. The genus 

 includes five species, which are found in the tropics, India, and 

 South America. Of these, two are highly valuable, the cocos nu- 

 cifera, or cocoa-nut tree ; and the cocos butyracea, or palm-oil tree. 

 We shall glance at each of them. 



1. Cocoa.nut Tree. 

 Cocos nuclfera. Linn. 



This tree rises to the height of sixty feet, and is slenderer in the 

 middle than towards the top or bottom. The leaves or branches 

 are often fourteen or fifteen feet long, and twenty-eight in number, 

 winged, of a yellow colour, straight and tapering. The pinnae are 

 green, often three feet long next the trunk, but diminishing in length 

 towards the extremity of the branches, which are fastened at top by 

 brown filamentous threads that grow out of them, of the size of 

 ordinary pack-thread, and are interwoven like a web. The nuts 

 hang at the summit of the trunk in clusters of a dozen each. The 

 incrusted white-meat of the nut is formed of the interior fluid, 

 which is continually concreting as it ascends from the root. The 

 interior fluid, or milk, as it is called, is often upwards of a pint. 

 The leaves are wrought into brooms, mats, sacks, hammocks, and 

 other utensils. In its original production this tree was probably an 

 Asiatic plant ; but it is now found in almost all the warm parts of 

 America. It may be propagated in our own country from the ripe 

 nut, which should be kept in large pots of sand during the voyage; 

 and if it should shoot in the course of the passage it will be so much 

 time gained. But the nuts brought to England for sale will seldom 

 answer for the purpose of propagation, as they are almost always 

 plucked before they are ripe, that they may the more safely endure 

 the voyage. 



The inhabitants also draw from the tree itself a very agreeable 

 liquor, which the Indians call sura, and the Europeans style palm 

 wine; and indeed it is little inferior to Spanish white wine, except 



