244 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



Coelococcus amicarum. Caroline ivory-nut palm. Plate xlv. 



Family Phoenicaceae. 



Local names. — Och (Ponape); Palma de Marfil (Spanish); Steinnuss-palme 

 ( German ) . 

 A pinnate-leaved palm introduced into Guam from the Caroline Islands. The 

 nuts are of an ivory-like texture and are exported from the Carolines to Germany 

 for button making. The spheroid fruit, about 7 centimeters long and 8 centimeters 

 in diameter, has a reddish brown, glossy, scaly shell. (PI. XLVI.) The surface of 

 the seed is glossy, black, and thickly striped, but not furrowed. The allied species 

 of the Solomon Islands ( C. solomonensis) has a straw-colored shell, and that of C. vitiensis 

 of Fiji, which is not used in the arts, is yellow. The inflorescence of this genus has 

 not yet been described. In some of the Solomon Islands the natives prepare sago 

 from the pith of the species growing there. It is said to keep well and not to be 

 injured by salt water, so that it is a valuable food staple to take with them on their 

 canoe voyages. a 



References: 



Coelococcus amicarum (Wendl. ). 

 Sagus amicarum Wendl. Bot. Zeit. 36: 115. 1878. 

 Coelococcus carolinensis Dingl. Bot. Centralbl. 32: 349. 1887. 

 Coenogonium. See Lichenes. 

 Coffea arabica. Coffee. Plate xxx. 



Family Rubiaceae. 



Local names. — Kafe (Guam); Kahaua (Mindanao, Lolo, Philippines). 

 A shrub with glossy green leaves, fragrant, white, jasmine-like flowers and red 

 berries, like small cherries, which contain two seeds, commonly called coffee. The 

 leaves are opposite, rarely in threes, about 15 cm. long by 6.5 cm. broad, with wavy 

 edges, and a long narrow point; flowers of short duration, with the fragrance of a 

 tuberose, in dense clusters at the bases of the leaves; calyx tube short, limb 5-parted, 

 persistent; corolla tubular, limb salver-shaped, 5-parted; stamens 5, fixed around the 

 top of the tube and protruding beyond it; ovary 2-celled; style filiform, smooth, 

 2-cleft; ovules 1 in each cell, peltately attached to the septum of the cell; seeds 

 plano-convex, grooved ventrally. 



In Guam coffee is one of the commonest plants, growing about most of the dwell- 

 ing houses as lilac bushes grow in America, and nearly every family has its cultivated 

 patch The climate and soil of the island seem well adapted to it, and it produces fruit 

 abundantly from the level of the sea to the tops of some of the highest hills. Plants 

 are obtained by planting seed at a depth of about 4 cm. in beds, or by taking up seed- 

 ling plants from under cultivated trees, where the seeds readily germinate without 

 attention. They are easily transplanted, differing in this respect from the seed- 

 lings of cacao, which are often killed in transplanting. Seeds fresh from the pulp 

 should be planted in the sementeras (nurseries) about 8 cm. apart, in rows. In 

 preparing the ground it is thoroughly pulverized and dry- brush is burned over it 

 shortly after the weeds begin to sprout. This saves a great deal of subsequent weed- 

 ing. Little watering is necessary in Guam. In transplanting crowding is avoided. 

 The plants are set out in straight rows at a distance of from 1.5 to 2.5 m. apart. On 

 hillsides they may be closer, about 1.5 by 1.5 m. Coffee trees planted too close 

 together lose the use of their lower branches, which become interlaced and shade 

 one another, so that only the top branches continue to grow and bear fruit. If the 

 coffee is planted in newly cleared land the brush is either left to decay between the 

 rows or burned. In places where the soil is shallow above the coral rock, holes are 

 made and filled with good earth brought from the forest. The best time for trans- 



«See Sadebeck, Die Kulturgewiichse, etc., pp. 16 to 19, figs. 10, A, B, C, 1899; 

 Guppv, Solomon Islands, p. 82, 1887; Warburg, Berichte der Deutsch. Bot. Gesell., 

 1896, p. 133. 



