236 THE MEDICINAL PLANTS OF THE PHILIPPINES 



BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION. A well-known palm with slender 

 stem, surrounded by many circles ; it grows to about the same 

 height as the coco-nut palm or less. The flowers spring in 

 bunches of long, thread-like spikes from the trunk a little be- 

 low the crown of leaves at the base of the long, smooth, green, 

 sheath-like petioles which clasp the trunk ; each spike bears 

 many staminate and a few pistillate flowers. The fruit is about 

 the size and shape of a hen's egg, the husk tow-like or filamen- 

 tose, the kernel pinkish or light red. 



HABITAT. Grows throughout the islands. 



Cocos nucifera, L. 



NOM. VULG. Coco, Sp.-Fil.; Niog, Tag.; Coco-nut Palm, 

 Eng. 



USES. This plant is, perhaps, the most useful in the Phil- 

 ippines. Without it and the bamboo plant the people of the 

 Archipelago would not know how to live. It produces vine- 

 gar, an alcoholic drink called tuba or coco-wine, an oil, an 

 edible nut, and its leaves are used instead of nipa to roof the 

 huts. 



Tuba is an opaline, slightly sweet liquid, with an agreeable 

 taste, which rapidly becomes acid under the influence of the 

 heat. A flowering or fruit-bearing stalk, which has not been 

 incised before, is chosen and encircled with several rings of 

 rope or rattan. The stalk is then cut and a bamboo vessel 

 called a bombon is hung to receive the sap which escapes during 

 the night. This liquid is valuable as a drink for those who are 

 debilitated, suffering from pulmonary catarrh, and even for 

 consumptives, who are accustomed to drink it every morning, 

 sometimes with marvelous results, according to reports. The 

 heat of the day rapidly ferments the tuba, converting it into a 

 mild vinegar, which is widely used for domestic purposes in the 

 Philippines. When fermented and distilled it produces a weak 

 alcohol of disagreeable taste called coco-wine. 



