COCOA-NUT PALM. 



363 



leaves being five feet two inches in length. Some yeai^s ago this splendid 

 specimen flowered, and produced an immense number of seeds, but being 

 a female plant, and no male near it, they were of course abortive. 

 Latania rubra, fifty years old, two feet six inches in circumference in 

 stem, and the leaves eight feet long. Phoenix dactylifera, sixty years old, 

 seven feet four inches in circumference in stem, and the leaves thirty feet 

 long. CorypJia nmbraeulifera, sixty years old, eight feet six inches round 

 the stem, and with leaves fifteen feet in length. 



Next in importance to these, exclusive of some of Loddiges', are those in 

 the magnificent palm-stove in the garden at Rennwegg, in Germany, 

 remarkable for its large palms ; and in that at Schonbrunn, the Cocos 

 nucifera, Elceis guineensiSy Caryota urer^s, and CorypJia umhraculifera^ 

 have attained a very large size. 



One species of palm, Cycas circinalis, aff'ords the well-knoAvn farinaceous 

 nutriment sago. This plant, which with us seldom exceeds two or 

 three feet in the trunk, attains a large size in the islands of the Indian 

 Archipelago, in which the easterly monsoon is the most boisterous and 

 rainy. It is found in most abundance in those islands in which the clove 

 and nutmeg are most propitiously grown. There are immense forests 

 of it in the great island of Ceram, in low, damp, marshy places, and 

 in these the finest sago plantations are in bogs knee-deep of mud and 

 water. The utmost age at which the tree arrives in its native country is 

 calculated at thirty years. There are specimens of it, however, con- 

 siderably above that age in om- European collections. 



THE COCOA-NUT PALM (Cocos uucifera). 



The cocoa-nut tree," says Mr. Porter, in the Tropical Agriculturist, 

 " is considered by some writers to be richer in the amount and variety of 

 its produce than any other known plant of the tropical regions, abounding 

 as they do in luxuriant specimens of vegetation. More than one valuable 

 product is drawn from its fruit, besides which, in an earlier state of 

 vegetation, the flower-bud is made to }deld its liquid sweets." 



In such great veneration do the natives of Hindostan, where it has 

 been cultivated from the earliest ages, hold this tree, that to cut it down 

 is considered one of their greatest crimes ; and amongst the nineteen 

 castes into which Brahma di\dded those tribes who still venerate him, 

 one caste is exclusively devoted to the cultivation of this tree, and pre- 

 paring its valuable products. Tliis caste, like the Le%-ites in the Mosaic law, 

 is the most distinguished, and ranks with those who are said to be of 



