1320 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
Vern. Nariyal (H.) ; Narikel, dab (B.) ; Narel, nariy^la 
(Guz.) ; Narela, narula, mad, mahad (Mar.) ; Tenua, tenga 
(Tam.); Narikadanu, tenkaia, kobbari, erra-bondala, gujju- 
narekadam (Tel.); Thenpinna, kinghenna, tengina (Kan.); 
Tenga, kalapa, nyor kalambir (Mala.) ; Nur (Mysore). 
Habitat : — Cultivated in India, Burma, Ceylon. Indigenous 
in tbe Cocos Island and North Andamans. (Kurz.) 
Mr. 0. F. Cook, in bis paper on the Origin and Distribution 
of the Cocoa Palm, published in Vol. VII of Contributions from 
the National Herbarium, United States of America, brings for- 
ward evidence for the American origin of the cocoanut palm. 
In another paper on the History of the Cocoanut palm in Ame- 
rica, published in Vol. 14 of the abovenamed Contributions, he 
brings additional facts to show that the cocoanut palm was al- 
ready widely distributed in the New World before the arrival of 
the Europeans, and that it is not naturally a maritime or humid 
tropical species, but a native of drier and more temperate plateau 
regions in South America. (B. D. B.) 
An unarmed, erect, tall, handsome, monoecious palm, the 
greatest beauty of the sea-coast of the Western Peninsula down to 
Ceylon ; not found wild. Trunk 40-80ft., I-2ft., diam., thickened 
and ascending at base, inclined black, scarcely forked. Leaves 
12-48ft.; leaflets 2-3ft., linear, lanceolate, acuminate, flaccid, 
bright-green. Petiole 3-5ft., stout, unarmed. Spadix 4-6ft., straw 
coloured, simply branched, shortly stoutly peduncled ; branches 
flexuous, densely fascicled. Spathe 2-3ft., narrowly oblong, 
tapering at both ends, glabrous or downy, spilling longitudinally. 
Male flowers small, yellowish ; sepals tain-, ovate, acute ; petals 
?in., oblong-lanceolate ; filaments subulate, anthers linear, erect. 
Female flowers : — few bibracteolate ; Sepals about lin., concave ; 
petals rather smaller. Ovary tented on an orange coloured disk. 
Fruit trigonously obovoid, oblong or sub-globose, 6-10in. long. 
Endosperm forming a thick white layer of a fleshy fibrous 
substance adherent to the membranous testa, which again is 
adherent to the almost stony- black endocarp. The embryo is 
opposite one pore only. This is the most noticeable character of 
the fruit. The coir is from the dense fibres beneath the exocarp. 
