COOK THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 313 



fruit is the size of an apricot, globular, and of a greenish-olive colour, and has a thin 

 layer of firm edible pulp of an orange colour covering the seed. 



This species is common in the neighbourhood of Para, where its nearly globular 

 crown of drooping feathery leaves is very ornamental. The fruit, though oily and 

 bitter, is very much esteemed and is eagerly sought after. It grows on dry soil about 

 Para and the Lower Amazon, but it is quite unknown in the interior.^ 



The native Porto Riean species, Acrocomia media, grows spon- 

 taneously in the sparse forests that occupy lands too barren and 

 craggy for agricultural use, and the same is true of the Central 

 American species, Acrocomia vinifera, in Guatemala and Costa Rica 

 (pi. 57). It is possible, however, that these individuals that appear 

 to be growing wild have only escaped from cultivation through the 

 accidental scattering of the seeds. 



The wine palms are well equipped to establish themselves in the 

 vicinity of human habitations. The trunks and leaves are beset 

 with sharp, black, needle-like spines, which protect them against graz- 

 ing animals, and the crown of leaves formed by the palms while still 

 quite young is thick enough to occupy the land and even to with- 

 stand fire when clearings are made around it. Even after the palm 

 has grown tall enough to expose the trunk the wood is so hard that 

 the Indians avoid cutting it unless the palms become so abundant 

 as to interfere with the lands they need for their corn or other crops. 



The accounts of the early explorers indicate that the sap of the 

 wine palm was in general use as a beverage among the Indians, but 

 its popularity seems to have greatly declined now that the white 

 man's liquors are obtainable. The palm is cut down to obtain the 

 sap, which continues to flow out of the upper end of the severed trunk 

 for several days. 



The wine palms bear spherical fruits which attain a diameter of 

 about 1 J inches. There is an outer layer of oily pulp with a slightly 

 acid flavor, combined with a dense coating of fine fibers, that adhere 

 to the wall of the nut inside. The pulp is often eaten by children 

 or by adult Indians on the road, though hardly to be reckoned as a 

 staple article of diet. The nut itself, without the fibers, is about the 

 size of a horse-chestnut, with a hard shell like that of a coconut and 

 of about the same thickness. The inclosed kernel is solid and has a 

 taste like coconut meat. In times of famine these nuts are extensively 

 eaten, but usually they go to waste. It is often proposed to utilize 

 them for the extraction of their oil, which is said to be much like that 

 of the coconut, but the problem of collecting and cracking the nuts has 

 not been solved, unless it be in the Paraguay region of South America. 

 It is said that the nuts are cleaned of the fiber by being eaten by 

 cattle and that the kernels are becoming an article of export to 

 Europe. 



« Wallace, A. R., Palm Trees of the Amazon and their Uses, p. 97, 



