THE COCOA-NUT PALM. 261 



furious gale, so that it seemed as if they would be 

 torn from their strong bases and carried away ; yet 

 even in such circumstances, the bending and rocking 

 of the stem was much less than that of an ordinary 

 tree of correspondent dimensions. The iron-like 

 firmness of the outer wood of a tall palm, the necessary 

 result of its endogenous growth, doubtless is the cause 

 of this rigidity. 



The Palms have no proper bark, nor is their surface 

 scored with longitudinal furrows ; but they are fre- 

 quently roughened with transverse projections, the 

 bases of the fronds that have been successively thrown 

 off. In the Cocoa-nut these are strongly marked, 

 and form a sort of rude steps which afford great 

 facility for climbing the tree. Around these bases a 

 curious substance lies in large sheathing irregular 

 pieces. At first sight one would pronounce it a 

 coarse loose cloth, so like a textile fabric are the 

 strong but slender fibres which are interwoven at 

 right angles to each other. It is however a natural 

 tissue, which spontaneously separates from the base 

 of the huge leafstalk. 



Another thing that strikes one forcibly in a grove 

 of Palms is to see in the trunk the same thickness 

 associated with all gradations of stature. Nor is 

 the novelty of the appearance much diminished by 

 the knowledge that such a phenomenon is also an in- 

 variable accompaniment of the endogenous structure 

 already alluded to. We are so accustomed to see 

 the size of a tree-head, the height, and the thick- 

 ness of the trunk, always bearing (at least approxi- 

 mately) the same proportions, that when we see the 



