THE PALMS OF BRITISH INDIA AND CEYLON. 687 



Names. 



English : Water-coconut, 



Bencj. : Gulga, gabna, golplial (fruits) Golpatta (leaves). 



Burm. : Dane. 



Andam. : Poothadah. 



Sing. : Ginpol. 



Ceylon : Gim-pol. 



Gv.am and Philijypines : Nipa, Sasa. 



Ponape : Parran. 



8ulu Archipelago : Ballang. 



Description. — Rootstock 1^ foot in diameter, rooting along the 

 lower surface. Leaves very many, erect and recurved, 15-30 feet 

 long ; petiole 4-5 feet long, very stout, sheath short ; leaflets 

 innumerable, shortly decurrent on the rhachis, 4-5 feet long, bright 

 green above, glaucous and 3-keeled beneath, tip subulate, midrib 

 scurfy. Spadix 4-7 feet long, peduncle 3-4 feet. Male flowers 

 ver}^ small ; sepals linear with clavate inflexed tips ; petals similar 

 but narrower — ovary densely crowded, cuneate-obovate, angled, top 

 pyramidal. Fruit 1 foot in diameter, nodding ; carpels 4-6 inches 

 long, densely packed on a globose, areolate receptacle, compressed, 

 broadly cuneiform, dark brown, crown 3-or more-angled ; seed as 

 large as a hen's egg. 



Habitat. — Sunderbunds, Burma, throughout Malay to Queens- 

 land; Ceylon, mouth of rivers on south-west coast, Kalutara, 

 Gindura River near Galle ; not in Peninsular India. Thousands 

 and thousands of acres of the salt marshes of the islands and coasts 

 of the Indian Ocean ma}^ be seen covered with this palm. It seems 

 to reach its western limit in Ceylon. 



Flowers in October. 



Uses. — The leaves are iised for thatch. For this purpose the leaflets 

 are stripped from the rhachis and formed into a thick fringe on a 

 reed. After having been thoroughly dried the thatch is secured to 

 the framework of the roof by lashings of Pandanus leaves split up to 

 the middle and deprived of their stiff keel. Two men work at a time 

 on each reed, beginning at the eaves and working toward the ridge, 

 which is covered with a sort of braided matting secured in place 

 by pins passing binder the ridge-pole and projecting on each side. 

 The Nipa is far superior to and more durable than coconut thatch. 

 Safibrd describes the preparations which are made for thatching on 

 the island of Guam in the following way. " The housewife begins 

 saving up dulces and other good things months beforehand. The 

 nipa leaves are collected, made into fringe, and allowed to dry. 

 Pandanus leaves are collected and cured and stripped of their 

 spiny-keeled midrib. When all is ready relatives and neighbours 

 are invited to assist, a pig or a bullock is killed, and the work goes 

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