ioe 
836 COCKSFOOT. 
found them alter in a few years, notwithstanding | give the plant an imposing appearance in winter. 
great care has been taken in the saving their; Four very distinct varieties of it, all about the 
seeds. The principal colours of their heads are 
red, purple, yellow, and white; but I have had 
some whose heads were divided like a plume of 
feathers, which were of a beautiful scarlet colour ; 
but these in a few years degenerated.” All the 
principal varieties of Celosia cristata, as at pre- 
sent understood, however, have either a buff-yel- 
| low or more or less of a dark red colour, and are 
classifiable into the florescent, the compact, the 
dwarf, and the tall. But seven other annual, 
ornamental species are in cultivation,—all rather 
more tender than Celosia cristata, but more or 
less resembling it in character;—the silvery- 
spiked, C. argentea, a foot high, and flesh-coloured ; 
the tufted, C. comosa, a foot high, and pink-col- 
_oured; the knotted-flowered, C. nodifiora, two 
feet high, and green-coloured; the camp, C. cas- 
trensis, two feet high, and purple-coloured ; Mon- 
son’s, C. Afonsoniw, a yard high, and white-col- 
oured; the drooping, C. cernwa, a yard high, and 
purple-coloured ; and the scarlet, C. coccinea, five 
feet high, and crimson-coloured. Some other 
annual species, and two evergreen small shrubby 
species, may be seen in some rare collections ; 
but they possess very little interest; and eight 
or nine other known species have not as yet been 
introduced. Very fine or even moderately good 
flowering plants of the crested species, or of the 
species akin to it, can be obtained only by means 
of very rich soil, very stimulating manure, several 
repottings, and nice care in watering and in the 
_ other details of culture—Two plants of widely 
different character from each other and from the 
Celosia genus, also bear the name of cockscomb ; 
the one a yellow-flowered annual weed of British 
meadows and pastures, Phinanthus Crista-galli ,; 
and the other one of the most magnificent, scar- 
let-flowered, evergreen, arborescent ornaments 
of the hothouse, Lrythrina Crista-galli. 
COCKSFOOT,—botanically Hehinochloa crus- 
gallt. An indigenous annual grass, of the prickly- 
grass genus. It grows in moist fields, and attains 
a height of about 20 inches. Cocksfoot is also 
the popular name of all the grasses of the dactylis 
genus. See the article Dactytis. 
COCKSPUR,—botanically Crategus Crus-galli. 
A species of hawthorn, sometimes called Cockspur 
hawthorn and Virginian Cockspur. It was in- 
troduced to Britain from North America, toward 
the close of the 17th century. Its stem is erect, 
and attains a height of about 20 feet ; its branches 
are smooth, and of a brownish colour, thinly ma- 
culated with small white spots; its spines are 
shaped somewhat like the spurs of cocks, and 
give to it the name of Cockspur; its leaves are 
oval, angular, serrated, smooth, bent backward, 
and about 4 inehes long and 3} broad; its flowers 
are produced in very long umbels, and make a 
noble show in May and June; and its fruit are 
large, and have a bright red colour, and, together 
with the large, turgid, bold-looking leaf-buds, 
COCOA-NUT-TREE. 
same height as the normal plant, are in cultiva- 
tion,—the shining, C. C. splendens,—the linear, 
CO. C. linearis,—the willow-leaved, C. C. salicifolia, 
—and the pyracant-leaved, C. C. pyracanthifolia. 
COCOA. See Cacao and CuHoconatE. - 
COCOA-NUT-TREE,—botanically Cocos. A 
genus of tropical trees, of the palm tribe. Eleven 
species are known to botanists; and three of these, 
the common, the plumose, and the flexuous, have 
been introduced to the hothouses of Britain. The 
common species, Cocos nucifera, is one of the best 
known and most useful of all the palms. Its 
stem is smooth, bare, and marked with circular | | 
rings; and, though less than a foot in diameter, 
soars to the height of 70 or 80 feet; its pinnated 
leaves form a noble crown upon its summit, in 
the ordinary manner of palms,—and each is about 
18 feet long, and from 3 to 4 feet broad; its leaf- 
lets are long, narrow, and sword-shaped, and 
spring fr h side of the centre nerve of the | 
pring from eac e 
leaves; its flowers grow in clusters,—and each | 
cluster is enclosed in a long spatha or sheath ; 
and its fruit hangs clustering among the leaves, | 
and is at first tender and whitish, but gradually 
hardens and embrowns,—and when ripe it con- 
sists of a smooth, greyish-brown, leathery, fibrous 
husk about an inch thick, and a very hard-shelled 
spheroidal nut, with a hollow kernel, and a cen- 
tral milky fluid. A tree possesses at all seasons 
very great beauty, and usually exhibits, on any 
one day of the year, the bud, the flower, the 
drupa, the miniature nut and the perfectly ripe 
fruit all simultaneously upon its boughs. 
The cocoa-nut-tree is extensively diffused, 
within the tropics, both as a natural production 
and as an object of cultivation; and in India, in | 
particular, it is more abundant than the olive in 
Spain, or the willow in Holland, and is esteemed 
the most valuable of all trees. In 1813, the num- 
ber of cocoa-nut-trees cultivated in Ceylon, along 
a line of coast of about 184 miles, was ten millions; 
and in the following years, their number was || 
increased. ‘Two or three crops of nuts are borne 
every year by each healthy tree. Excellent 
houses, warm, comfortable, and substantial enough 
to resist the strongest monsoon, are sometimes 
made wholly of the cocoa-nut plant,—the sup- 
porters and rafters of its timber, the walls, doors, 
windows and roof of its leaves, and the fastenings 
of the fibre of its nuts. Llephants are fed on its 
leaves; and the Cingalese washer-women use its 
ashes instead of soap. Sugar, palm-wine, and 
vinegar are made from a liquor which flows copi- 
ously from any incision in the flower-sheath. 
The natives of many tropical countries are more 
palmivorous than granivorous, and obtain so large 
a proportion of their food from the juices and 
kernel of the cocoa-nut, that a man who possesses 
twelve cocoa-nut-trees and two jack-trees, finds 
all his natural wants supplied, and has no incen- 
tive to labour. A facile preparation of the fibres 
