VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS. 685 



but after a few hours they collapse and assume the appearance 

 of a bat's wing half closed. The lip is furnished near its base 

 with a yellow cup, over which hang two horns constantly 

 distilling water into it, and in such abundance as to fill it 

 several times. This cup communicates by a narrow channel, 

 formed of the inflated margin of the lip, with the upper end 

 of the latter ; and this also has a capacious vessel, very much 

 like an old helmet, into which the liquid that the cup cannot 

 contain runs over. 



The cockarito-palm as it is familiarly called here grows to 

 the height of fifty feet, and produces the most delicate cabbage 

 of the palm species. It is enclosed in a husk in the very 

 heart of the tree, at its summit. This husk is peeled off in 

 strata until the white cabbage appears in long thin flakes 

 in taste like the kernel of a nut. The inner part is often used 

 as a salad, while the outer is boiled, and considered superior 

 to the European cabbage. Within such cabbages as are in a 

 state of decay, a maggot is found the larva of a black beetle 

 (urculio), which, growing to the length of four inches, and as 

 thick as a man's thumb, is called " grogro." This creature, 

 disgusting as it is in appearance, when dressed is considered 

 a great delicacy partaking of the flavour of all the spices of 

 the East. 



A curious shrub if it can be so called known as the 

 troolies, consists of large leaves twenty feet long and two 

 broad, of a strong texture, and straight fibres growing from a 

 small fibrous root ; the leaves rising from the ends of the eight 

 or ten stems which it puts forth. These leaves are employed 

 chiefly for covering the roofs of buildings. 



From the silk-cotton tree, which grows to the height of one 

 hundred feet, and is twelve or fourteen in diameter, the Indians 



