54 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
ble of but little irritation from its wiry texture and 
surface. It is a favourite dress with the fishermen, 
and others occupied on the sea. 
The fruit, however, is the most valuable part of 
this serviceable, hardy, and beautiful plant. The 
flowers are small and white, insignificant when 
compared with the size of the tree or the fruit. 
They are ranged along the sides of a tough, succu¬ 
lent, branching stalk, surrounded by a sheath, 
which the natives call aroe , and are fixed to the 
trunk of the tree, immediately above the bottom 
of the leaf. Fruit in every stage, from the first 
formation after the falling of the blossom, to the 
hard, dry, ripe, and full-grown nut, that has almost 
begun to germinate, may be seen at one time on 
the same tree, and frequently fruit in several dis¬ 
tinct stages on the same bunch, attached to the 
trunk of the same stalk. 
The tree is slow in growth, and the fruit does 
not, probably, come to perfection in much less 
than twelve months after the blossoms have fallen. 
A bunch will sometimes contain twenty or thirty 
nuts, and there are, perhaps, six or seven bunches 
on the tree at a time. Each nut is surrounded by 
a tough fibrous husk, in some parts two inches 
thick; and when it has reached its full size, it 
contains, enclosed in a soft white shell, a pint or a 
pint and a half of the juice usually called cocoa- 
nut milk. 
There is at this time no pulp whatever in the 
inside. In this stage of its growth the nut is called 
oaa, and the liquid is preferred to that found in the 
nut in any other state. It is perfectly clear, and 
in taste combines a degree of acidity and sweet¬ 
ness, which renders it equal to the best lemonade. 
No accurate idea of the consistence and taste of 
