THE COCOA NUT TREE. 



241 



Ing. A single leaf clo3»ly resembles an ostrich- 

 feather magnified a great number of times 

 beyond its natural size. 



103. 



Cocoa Nut and Flower. 



The flower is axillary, and proceeds from a 

 large single-leaved pointed spathe, which always 

 opens on the under surface. The spadix is spi- 

 cate ; each spike has towards its base one or two 

 female flowers, the others being male. In both 

 male and female flowers the calyx has three di- 

 visions, and the corolla three petals. The male 

 flowers have six stamens, and the female three 

 stigmas. Drupe oval, three-sided, about eight or 

 ten inches long, exterior covering smooth, inte- 

 rior fibrous ; nut monospermous, very hard, has 

 three unequal holes at the base closed with a 

 black membrane ; meduUary part nearly half an 

 inch thick, white, hard, commonly filled with a 

 sweetish watery liquid. Ripe nuts are known 

 by a succussion of the water they contain, when 

 shaken. 



A recticulated substance, resembling coarse 

 cloth, (Matulla, Singhalese,) involves the base 

 of each leaf, which falls off before the leaf has 

 attained a state of maturity. In Bengal, this 

 filamentous body is supposed to harbour insects, 

 which are destructive to the tree : on that ac- 

 count, it is there destroyed by fire. 



The roots are slender, and very flexible : they 

 rise separately from the bottom of the trunk, 

 some sink into the earth, while others take a 

 horizontal direction very little under the surface. 

 They do not penetrate an indurated soil. 



The tree when young bears a near resemblance 

 to a herbaceous plant ; indeed, during the whole 

 progress of its growth it has some analogy with 

 vegetable productions of this kind. It has no 

 bark ; the surface appears to be formed of the ci- 

 catrices, which succeed the fall- of the leaves, 

 much hardened by the action of the air and sun. 

 A slight wound in the central bud is fatal to the 

 tree ; but the hardened trunk is capable of bear- 

 ing considerable injury with impunity. 



Cocoa nut trees are often struck by lightning, 

 which frequently kills the terminal leaf-bud, and 

 thereby occasions the death of the tree. This 

 tree never changes the diameter it has once ac- 

 quired. Should any circumstance occur capable 

 of retarding the growth during one or more 

 years, such as transplantation, tlie efi^ect is very 

 evident in the stem by a permanent contraction ) 



in its diameter. Immediately above the^e 

 blighted parts small roots sometimes protrude, 

 but they seldom extend beyond a few inches. 

 Frequently the trunk has a larger diameter ai 

 the base and top than in the middle. 



The wood of the stem is composed of hard, 

 flexible, ligneous, black fibres, united by a soft 

 brownish cellular substance, capable of being re- 

 duced to powder. The palms have in the inte- 

 rior structure of their trunks no analogy with 

 other trees. Their manner of growth may be 

 compared to that of the white lily, whose stems, 

 " though of annual duration, are formed nearly 

 on the same principle as that of a palm, and are 

 really a congeries of leaves rising one above an- 

 other, and united by their bases into an appar- 

 ent stem." In habit and in structure they re- 

 semble the ferns, in their blossom the gi-asses, 

 and the asparagi in their mode of fructification. 

 All the palms have in a greater or less degree a 

 spongy structure. The cellular substance of the 

 Gi/cas circinalis (sago- palm) is, in some of the 

 islands of the eastern Archipelago, manufactured 

 into the nutritive substance called sago, or 

 sagu, — a word which is said to mean mealin the 

 dialect of Amboyna. The Caryota urens (ne- 

 pery tree) yields a considerable quantity of 

 fecula, or sago ; but in Ceylon this substance is 

 not extracted, except during a period when rice 

 is scarce. Sago is easily obtained from the in- 

 terior part of the trunk of these trees. The pro- 

 cess consists in pounding the spongy or cellular 

 texture of the stem, — sometimes erroneously 

 called the pith, — and washing it with water, 

 which is strained, to separate the ligneous fibres 

 from the fecula. Sago is grained by moistening 

 the flour, and pressing it through a sieve, into a 

 shallow iron pot, that is suspended over a fire, 

 by which means it assumes a globular form. In 

 consequence of being half-baked during the pro- 

 cess of granulation, it may be kept a long time 

 without undergoing a chemical change. Sago ia 

 not manufactured in Ceylon, although the tree 

 grows there in abundance. The exterior lamina 

 of the stem of a cocoa nut tree is always much 

 harder than the interior. 



There is a variety of this palm called the 

 icing's cocoa nut, the fruit of which has a bright 

 yellow colour. Nuts of this kind contain a 

 great proportion of fluid, which, on account of 

 its supposed cooling quality, is given to invalids, 

 in preference to that of the common nuts ; but 

 they are not esteemed so good as common nuts 

 for culinary purposes. 



The nut known by the name of the Maldive 

 cocoa nut, Chmdira (Singhalese,) Sea cocoa nut, 

 Double cocoa nut, Nux medica ('Borassus Se- 

 cliellensis), is the produce of a palm-tree, which 

 Roohon tells us abounds in the isle of Palms, 

 one of the Seychelle islands, but nowhere else. 

 The fruit presents an appearance of two thighs; 

 2u 



