138 



[Feb. 1908. 



FIBRES. 



THE DANNI PALM. 



Of the many remarkable palms that 

 flourish on the tropical littoral of India 

 and the East, few are more valuable or 

 generally interesting than the graceful 

 feathery leaved Nipa fruticans. This 

 species instals itself on the soft, dark, 

 slimy mud of marshy land in the 

 vicinity of the sea, which is subject to 

 the direct play of the tides. The mean 

 elevation of the major portion of the 

 land on which it is most at home is well 

 beloAV the marks of high water ; while 

 in many of the localities of its instal- 

 lation the tips alone of its leaves are 

 visible above the swirling eddies of the 

 flood. On the margins of the estuaries 

 of sluggish rivers where the deposit of 

 slit is so soft and treacherous as to 

 scarcely afford foot-hold to man, and 

 fringing the borders of tortuous tidal 

 creeks upwards as far as the tides are 

 felt, the Nipa palm, with its pert light- 

 green fronds that seem to shoot up from 

 the ooze itself, takes complete posses- 

 sion of the soil. Along the coasts of 

 Burmah and the Malay Peninsula and 

 on the shores of the islands which lie 

 scattered beyond them, wherever 

 sufficient protection from the violence of 

 wind and wave is afforded a locality to 

 admit of the undisturbed deposition of 

 silt upon it, patches of the species, pure 

 or mixed, from forest near the sea. The 

 Nipa palm is gregarious of habit, and 

 generally forms pure forests ; it is, 

 however, sometimes mixed when, with 

 the exception of an occasional tangled 

 cane-brake, its usual associates are 

 species of the commoner Indian Man- 

 groves, Rhizophora, Bruguiera, Avicen- 

 nia, Ceriops, a scaly-stemmed, pinnate- 

 leaved ornamental Date palm, Phoenix 

 paLudosa and the Pandanus furcotus and 

 other Screw pines. Unlike the majority 

 of tropical palms the Nipa fruticans 

 has no true stem ; it nevertheless 

 developes a stem of rhizomes (under 

 ground stems) as vigorous, extensive and 

 aggressively exclusive as any to be met 

 with in the vegetable world. Long 

 before the plant will have arrived at 

 maturity, the original rhizome that had 

 developed from the base of the fruit 

 which gave it birth sends out branches 

 in various directions from the nodes at 

 the ends and upper surfaces of which 

 rosettes and rows of bright-green fronds 

 are successively thrown up above the 

 ground. The secondary rhizomes, in due 

 course, give rise to others from which, 

 in turn, fronds spring up to meet light. 

 Thus, in time, the land if suitable, is 

 covered with a dense forest of the 



species. But for their pert habit of 

 growth and comparative shortness of 

 the lighter green of the somewhat stiff 

 and close set pinnaa, Nipa fronds resem- 

 ble those of the coconut palm in its 

 acaulous stage. 



When the plant attains to its fullest 

 developments, the flowering spadices, 

 which are closely enveloped in short, 

 scaly, fibrous spathes, and borne at the 

 ends of stout peduncles are, from time 

 to time, given out at the bases of the 

 fronds. The obovate, purple-brown, 

 fibrous fruits which, in due course, form 

 globose clusters are sessile, like those of 

 the Palmyrah palm, but so crowded to- 

 gether as to become flattened, curved, 

 and sharply edged. They further 

 resemble the fruit of the Palmyra in 

 that, when they are immature, the grey 

 albuminous lining of the nut forms a 

 soft and jelly-like substance which 

 furnishes a cool, agreeable, and refresh- 

 ing esculent. Besides the young fruits, 

 the pinnae of the fronds, in the localities 

 in which the palm is abundant, are 

 plaited into thatch for roofing purposes. 

 The lower ends of the mature fronds, as 

 well as the fresh larger spathes are 

 valuable, though neglected, sources of 

 fibre for brush and broom-making. But 

 the most important and valuable product 

 of the palm is its abundant nutritious 

 sap or toddy. In the more accessible 

 regions of its distribution this is ex- 

 tracted in the following manner : — When 

 a spadix, of which a single plant often 

 bears three or four in the season, will 

 have attained the limit of its elongation 

 and begin to arch down with the weight 

 of the expanding inflorescence, the latter 

 is severed at its junction with the 

 peduncle. The cut end of the peduncle 

 is now tied round with fibre and inserted 

 into the narrow mouth of an earthen 

 pot. Owing to root and other internal 

 pressure, the sap soon trickles into the 

 pot, the contents of which are collected 

 and stored. On account of the preva- 

 lence of the tides, the operations of 

 tapping and collecting the toddy have 

 to be conducted between their ebb and 

 flow. The toddy which, when freshly 

 drawn, is a tasteless, insipid, clear liquid, 

 turns, by keeping, into a turbid intoxi- 

 cant of acid bitter taste. At all times it 

 is more liquescent than the similar 

 product obtained from the coconut, 

 palmyrah, or cargota palm. The toddy 

 is either consumed as such, or it is 

 distilled into an ardent spirit. This 

 arrack, as it is distilled in Mergui, is 

 characterised by a nauseating taste and 

 acid odour, but does not, when drunk 

 lead to the ready or complete inebriatio 



