1320 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



Vern. :— Nariyal (H.) ; Narikel, dab (B.) ; Narel, nariyela 

 (Guz.) ; Narela, narula, mad, mahad (Mar.) ; Tenna, tenga 

 (Tam.); Narikadanu, tenkaia, kobbari, erra-bondala, gujju- 

 narekadam (Tel.); Tbenpinna, kinghenna, tengina (Kan.); 

 Tenga, kalapa, nyor kalambir (Mala.) ; Nur (Mysore). 



Habitat : — Cultivated in India, Burma, Ceylon. Indigenous 

 in tbe Cocos Island and North Andamans. (Kurz.) 



Mr. 0. F. Cook, in bis paper on tbe Origin and Distribution 

 of the Cocoa Palm, published in Vol. VII of Contributions from 

 the National Herbarium, United States of America, brings for- 

 ward evidence for the American origin of the cocoanut palm. 

 In another paper on the History of the Cocoanut palm in Ame- 

 rica, published in Vol. 14 of the abovenamed Contributions, he 

 brings additional facts to show that the cocoanut palm was al- 

 ready widely distributed in the New World before the arrival of 

 the Europeans, and that it is not naturally a maritime or humid 

 tropical species, but a native of drier and more temperate plateau 

 regions in South America. (B. D. B.) 



An unarmed, erect, tall, handsome, monoecious palm, the 

 greatest beauty of the sea-coast of the Western Peninsula down to 

 Ceylon ; not found wild. Trunk 40-80ft., l-2ft., diam., thickened 

 and ascending at base, inclined black, scarcely forked. Leaves 

 12-18ft.; leaflets 2-3ft., linear, lanceolate, acuminate, flaccid, 

 bright-green. Petiole 3-5ft., stout, unarmed. Spadix 4-6ft., straw 

 coloured, simply branched, shortly stoutly peduncled ; branches 

 flexuous, densely fascicled. Spathe 2-3ft., narrowly oblong, 

 tapering at both ends, glabrous or downy, spilling longitudinally. 

 Male flowers small, yellowish ; sepals rVn., ovate, acute ; petals 

 £in., oblong-lanceolate ; filaments subulate, anthers linear, erect. 

 Female flowers : — few bibracteolate ;. Sepals about lin., concave ; 

 petals rather smaller. Ovary tented on an orange coloured disk. 

 Fruit trigonously obovoid, oblong or sub-globose, 6-10in. long. 

 Endosperm forming a thick white layer of a fleshy fibrous 

 substance adherent to the membranous testa, which again is 

 adherent to the almost stony-black endocarp. The embryo is 

 opposite one pore only. This is the most noticeable character of 

 the fruit. The coir is from the dense fibres beneath the exocarp. 



