174 Dr Cleghorn on the Coco-Nut Tree and its Uses. 
the Palms,” mentions five varieties as indigenous to Ceylon. 
The first, or King Coco-nut, “the Tembili of the Cingalese, 
must be well known to those who reside in Ceylon; its 
bright orange colour, and somewhat oval shape, cannot fail 
to attract notice, and it is usually presented to respectable 
Europeans by the Modeliars, or by the priests, as a compli- 
ment to those whose curiosity may have induced a visit to the 
shrine of Buddhoo. The second is of a similar colour to the 
preceding, but of a more spherical shape. The third is of a 
pale yellow, and rather heart-shaped; it is the Nowas? or 
edible husk, and has the peculiar quality, that, after the ep7- 
carpium has been removed the inner rind (mesocarpium) 
turns to a pale red, and is edible. The fourth is the common 
coco-nut which is in general use, and the one most known. 
The fifth is a species of Maldivia or dwarf coco-nut, about 
the size of a turkey’s egg, which, being rare, is more 
esteemed as a curiosity than for any peculiar good quality it 
possesses.” * 
The principal difference in the several varieties appears to 
consist in the shape of the nut, which takes a different form, 
and varies in size in different countries. In Canara it is more 
oval, for instance, than on the Coromandel coast; and it is 
smaller and more spherical in the Maldives than elsewhere. 
The different names for the coco-nut tree in Southern 
India are as follows:—Tamil, Tenna-maram ; Telugu, Ten- 
kai-mani; Canarese, Tengani-maram; Malayalam, Ten- 
gana-maram; Hindostani, Narel-ka-jhdr. A description of 
the tree is unnecessary. It is found all over the tropical 
parts of the world. It grows to 60, 70, or 80 feet high. Dr 
Hunter, who measured a coco-nut tree at Pairur, found it to 
be 85 feet high, and a palmyra tree 65 feet. The size and 
fruitfulness of the coco-nut tree varies considerably with the 
nature of the soil. It seems partial to the sea-coasts, where 
it flourishes in great luxuriance. All along the Malabar 
coast, in particular, forests of coco-nut trees line the water’s 
edge, and yield abundant crops of fruit. 
Notwithstanding its partiality for the sea, however, there 
seems to be no arid sandy drift too barren to admit of the 
* Popular History of the Palms, p, 165. 
