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SECOND BOOK. 
COCO (COLOCASIA ESCULENT A). 
1 . If you were asked to name a few of the most 
valuable food-plants of the West Indies I am sure 
you would give the coco a high place in your list. 
The name in general use in Jamaica for this plant 
is not a very good one, because it is so nearly like 
cocoa, coca, and cocoa-nut. In other parts of the 
West Indies the tubers are called eddoes, or tanias. 
2 . As might be expected in the case of a plant 
which gives such useful food, the coco is grown in 
many countries, and, as is usual with plants that 
are extensively cultivated, there are several varieties. 
3. Both in the leaves and the flowers of the coco 
there is something remarkable to notice. 
The coco belongs to the great class of flowering 
plants with one seed-leaf, and we should therefore 
expect to find its leaf- veins lying evenly side by 
side, as in the leaves of corn and banana. But they 
do not follow the general rule, and we find them 
net- veined, like those in the great class of flowering 
plants with two seed-leaves. 
4. Its flowering spike also is well worth examin- 
ing. We find that it is not a single flower, but 
that very many small flowers are arranged on the 
spike, and that those towards the top are very dif- 
ferent from the lower ones. 
5. It is easy to explain the cause of this differ- 
ence; the upper flowers have only anthers, the 
