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PALMACEiE. 27 



to eight feet long. The fruit of this tree is the well-known date, which forms 

 so common an article of food among the inhabitants of Egypt, Arabia, and 

 Persia ; it is stated indeed by Dr. Clarke, that they subsist almost entirely on 

 this fruit, of which the quantity borne by each tree is prodigious. A single 

 date-palm will bear more than a hundred-weight, and not unfrecraently between 

 two and three hundred-weight, of dates in a season. They begin to bear fruit 

 when about seven years old, and are said to be fruitful for upwards of two hun- 

 dred years. 



Corypha umbraculifera, the majestic talipot palm, is a most remarkable 

 species, and is thus described by Knox, in his History of Ceylon, of which 

 country it is a native : — " As big and as tall as a ship's mast, and very straight. 

 The leaves are very large, some capacious enough to cover from fifteen or twenty 

 to thirty or forty men ; these are of great use, for being, when dried, very strong 

 and limber, though very broad when open, yet they will fold close like fans, and 

 are then no bigger than a man's arm. The whole leaf-spread is round, but it 

 is cut into triangular pieces for use ; these the natives lay upon their heads when 

 they travel, with the narrow end foremost, to make their way through thickets. 

 The soldiers there all carry these umbrellas, not only to shade them from the 

 sun, and to keep them dry in case of rain on their march, but when set on-end, 

 to make tents for them to lie under. A magnificent crown of these leaves, as is 

 usual with palms, terminates the stately column, 100 feet in height, which is 

 formed by the trunk. The talipot bears no fruit until the last year of its life, 

 and then yellow blossoms, most lovely to behold, but smelling very strong, come 

 out on the top, and spread abroad in great branches. The fruit is in such abun- 

 dance, that one palm will yield seed enough to stock a whole country ; the 

 berries are round and hard, the size of our largest cherries, but not good to eat. 

 The trunks when young are full of a mealy pith-like substance, which is beaten 

 in mortars, and cakes made of it, that have very much the taste of ordinary 

 white bread. The leaves are used instead of thatch for roofing houses, and also 

 for writing on with an iron style. Most of the books shown in Europe for the 

 Egyptian papyrus are made from the leaves of this palm. 



There are other species of Corypha which are also plants of great import- 

 ance ; as C. Taliera, "a magnificent species growing in Northern India, and 

 applied by the natives to various economical purposes ; C. rotundifolia is valuable 

 for the amylaceous food (a kind of sago) which it produces ; C. cerifera, a native 

 of Brazil, yields a wax-like matter, to which its specific name, cerifera (wax- 

 bearing), refers. 



The genus Cocos is one of immense importance to the inhabitants of the coun- 

 tries in which it grows. There are several species, but the most remarkable, and 

 indeed the most valuable, is C. nucifera, the cocoa-nut palm, a native of, aud culti- 

 vated extensively in, many tropical countries. Its simple, cylindrical trunk, grows 

 to a great height, crowned at the top with its fine, clustered leaves, which are 



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