30 THE PALM FAMILY. 



By the people its roots are appreciated, perhaps, more than its beauty, 

 for they make them into brushes and weave their coarse, stiff fibre into 

 sacking when they have washed out the softer tissues. Again they boil 

 them down and drink the liquid as a medicine. The berries are consid- 

 erably eaten, and besides being very tasteful they are said to be fattening. 



5. arborescens thrives in the margins of swamps which, in southwestern 

 Florida, follow the course of the Chockoloskee river. Inhabit it is arbores- 

 cent, often becoming thirty and forty feet high, and producing one or more 

 stems. Its flowers are minute. They and also the small fruit grow in a 

 spadix considerably more elongated than that of the preceding species. 



Oxeodbxa r€gia,\.\\^ royal palm, appears to be one of nature's miracles as, 

 at the great height of eighty or one hundred feet, its large leaves are seen 

 moving ceaselessly in the air. Often they measure fifteen feet long and 

 have a grace hardly conceivable by those who have not seen them. 

 They are closely and pinnately divided into narrowly-linear segments which 

 from their bases taper gradually to a pointed apex. Conspicuously veined, 

 and of a dark, brilliant green it is the more noticeable that on their under 

 sides they are covered with small, pale -coloured dots. In Florida, where 

 for one place the royal palm grows about Rogue's River, the spadix opens 

 its bloom in January and February. In fruit, it is even a more attractive 

 sight as the violet blue berries are quite ornamental. 



The wood of the trunk's interior is spongy and of no great value ; but 

 the outer rim is beautifully marked and made extensively into the canes 

 which tourists buy as souvenirs. 



Pseiidophcetiix Sargent i is the name of the rare palm which is found at the 

 east end of Elliott's key, and also on Key Largo, Florida, and about which 

 Mr. Curtis has written : " On account of the small number of these trees 

 and the precarious condition under which they grow, they might have disap- 

 peared wholly from the world but for their timely discovery by Professor 

 Sargent." They are usually from twenty to twenty-five feet high with large, 

 erect leaves which are abruptly pinnatifid. The spadix is often quite three 

 feet long and bears very showy fruit. 



Thrinax Floridana at its best grows to a height of about thirty feet, and 

 its trunk, with bluish grey covering, is generally decorated with the persis- 

 tent bases of the petioles. The nearly circular leaves are bright yellow- 

 green, shiny above and on the lower side silvery white. The tips of the 

 petioles are orange coloured while the lower down become thick and tomen- 

 tose. By the long, branching spadix ivory-white and fragrant flowers are 

 abundantly produced. They come forth in June although the tree some- 

 limes blossoms again in October or November. About six months later the 

 fruit ripens. The plant grows on sandy shores and coral ridges and has 





