Mr. G. Clark an the Cocoa-nut of the Seychelles Islands. 447 



eight years after the fecundation, the drupe has become fibrous, 

 and from a rich dark green has turned to a reddish yellow, and 

 falls from the stem. Germination takes place sometimes before, 

 sometimes after, the fall of the fruit, the shell of which is hard 

 and black, and marked all over by traces of the fibres which 

 were inserted in it ; and a bunch of these fibres, much resem- 

 bling coarse black hair, remains in the orifice from which the 

 germ sprouts. The yellow bitter substance has become a 

 leathery skin, enclosing the perisperm ; and the soft jelly-like 

 mass has been condensed into a tasteless kernel, as hard as 

 beech-wood, of a pure white colour, leaving a large cavity in each 

 lobe of the nut ; and at the point of junction of the two lies the 

 embryo, of turbinated form. The germ, in passing through the 

 orifice mentioned, becomes fibrous, assumes a club-shape, and 

 curves towards the ground, which it penetrates. The radicle 

 descends vertically, and from it sprout the rootlets. At a depth 

 of 2 or 2^ feet sprouts a fibrous leaf, at an angle of about forty- 

 five degrees. This leaf seems to perform the office of a coty- 

 ledon to that which follows it, and which springs from its side. 

 Each succeeding leaf becomes larger, and approaches more 

 nearly to a vertical direction, till the crown is formed, when they 

 succeed each other in the usual way. The trunk does not show 

 itself till twenty or twenty-five years after the germination of 

 the nut ; and fourteen or fifteen years from this period the plant 

 is in its greatest beauty, and begins to blossom. As many as 

 eight or ten spadices may be seen on a tree at the same time, 

 the male flowers, as has been said, retaining their bloom ; and 

 the female fiowers seem to have the power of waiting an inde- 

 finite period for fecundation. Six or seven full-sized drupes 

 may be sometimes seen on one spadix ; but although as many 

 as eight female fiowers may be seen on one stem, it is rare to see 

 more than three or four arrive at maturity. Imperfect fecun- 

 dation often takes place, and a partial development of the drupe 

 goes on. In this case it becomes deformed, assumes a curved 

 shape, and falls a useless abortion. The Coco-de-Mer grows in 

 every kind of soil, but attains its greatest size and beauty in the 

 deep moist gorges of the mountains, where a rich bed of humus 

 favours the growth of that as well as of other palms, some of 

 which greatly surpass it in height. By the sea-side, and in 

 situations much exposed to the wind, the Coco-de-Mer presents 

 a somewhat barren aspect; its leaves, being renewed so slowly, are 

 withered and rent, and the trees might be supposed to be dying. 

 It has been observed that, at the discovery of the islands which 

 produce it, vast forests of the Coco-de-Mer existed. The height 

 and smoothness of the trunk rendered it a less difficult matter 

 to cut down a high tree than to climb it, to obtain its fruit ; and 



