128 



THE PALM TREE. 



country, I yet found time to examine and admire the 

 wonders of vegetable life which everywhere abounded. 

 Huge trees with buttressed stems, tangled climbers 

 of fantastic forms, and strange parasitical plants 

 everywhere meet the admiring gaze of the naturalist 

 fresh from the meadows and heaths of Europe. 

 Everywhere, too, rise the graceful Palms, true 

 denizens of the tropics, of which they are the most 

 striking and characteristic feature. In the districts 



which I visited they 

 Were abundant, and 

 I soon became inte- 

 rested in them. 



"The purposes to 

 which the different 

 parts of Palms are 

 applied are very va- 

 rious, the fruit, the 

 leaves, and the stem, 

 all having many uses 

 in the different 

 species. Some of 

 them produce valua- 

 ble articles of export 

 to our own and other 

 countries; but they 

 are of far more value 

 to the natives of the 



districts where they grow, in many cases furnishing 

 the most important necessaries for existence. 



" The Cocoa-nut is known to us only as an agree- 



The Cocoa-nut Palm. 



