VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL PRODUCTIONS. 331 
existence in early life, so in the cohune ; and I have never, 
in the scores of nuts opened, found more than one cell. 
Professor Watson has noticed two cells in several speci¬ 
mens, but never three. In the illustration of this palm 
the bunch of nearly ripe nuts is clearly shown, and in the 
diagram of flowers and fruit the fibrous husks and the 
abortive cells may be seen. The natives crush the ripe 
nuts between stones, and after pounding the rather small 
kernel in a mahogany mortar, boil the resulting cake 
until the oil floats; this is skimmed off and boiled again, 
to drive out the water. The average yield is a quart of 
oil from a hundred nuts. The oil is said to be superior 
to coconut-oil, a pint of it giving as much light, or rather 
burning as long, as a quart of the latter . 1 It is not 
probable that the manufacture will pay in the presence 
of the more tractable coconut. As the cohune grows 
older, the hitherto persistent leaf-stems drop, the scars 
disappear, and the smooth stem rises thirty to fifty feet 
clear to the crown of leaves at the summit. 
The pimento-palm has a small cinnamon-colored stem 
much used for house building, as is also the poknoboy 
(Badris balanoidea ). The warree cohune (Badris co¬ 
hune ), armed with spines, bears an edible nut much easier 
to crack than the larger fruit of the attalea. The cab¬ 
bage-palm (Oreodoxa oleracea ) is common in the upper 
valleys, and the base of the leaf is a very poor cabbage, 
nor is it eaten to any extent. In the forests the pacaya 
(Euterpe edulis) is a slender tree, the unexpanded flower- 
buds being the edible part; and these are on sale in the 
1 Mr. Coffin, the hospitable magistrate at Punta Gorda, gave me some of the 
best oil; and in the limited experiments I have tried with it, its properties much 
resemble those of coconut-oil. 
