1 69 1.] PALM-TREES. 61 



Trees of this little Eden, are not less useful or necessary for 

 the Conveniences of Life, than pleasant to the Eyes or the 

 Mind. Tor Example, the several sorts of Palm-Trees and 

 Plantanes are Admirable Magazines of Necessaries for those 

 Sages, who Believe and Practise what St. Paul says. The 

 Fruit of them is excellent, and the Water which the Trunks 

 of these Trees yield, and which runs from its Spring without 

 Preparation, is a kindly and delicious Liquor ; some of the 

 Leaves are good to eat, others serve instead of Silk or Linen. 

 There are abundance of these wonderful Trees all over our 

 Isle. Perhaps the Pieader may expect that I shou'd explain 

 my self a little on this Head. 



I shall not undertake to give a Description of Palm-trees 

 and Plantanes (Lataniers), a Thousand and a Thousand 

 Men having written of them, and I know there are above 

 thirty^ several sorts of them : Neither shall I enlarge in the 

 Description of those I am speaking of, but give a small 

 Idiea of them, for the sake of such as do not know what 

 sort of Trees these are. 



Our Palm-trees are commonly thirty or forty Foot high ; 

 their Trunk is straight, and without Leaves, but 'tis cover'd 

 with a sort of prickly Scales, whose prickles stand out a 

 little : Some have a smoother Bark than others. On the top 

 of the Trunks grow those Boughs of Palm, of which no Man 

 ever saw a lively Picture. These Boughs form a great 

 Knot (bouquet), and fall down all about it in Plumes : Below 

 these Boughs, or father below the Trunk from which they 

 grow, are produc'd long Bunches, each Fruit or Grain (est 

 verel) as big as a Hens Egg, and of the same shape, known 

 by the Name of Bates} 



1 Botanists have now distinguished considerably more than a thou- 

 sand species of palms, divided, according to Sir J. Hooker, into 132 

 genera. 



2 It is a difficult matter to decide what particular species of palm is 

 referred to by Leguat. Prof. Is. Bayley Balfour, who visited Rodri- 

 guez with the Transit of Venus expedition (1874-6), made a special 



