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Page 35
The Princes of Vegetation are to be found in all parts of the world
where the climate is adapted to the tropical tastes of their Royal
Highnesses.
They have come into our art, our literature, and our familiar knowledge
from the East; but they abound in the tropics of the West, and some
species are now common in South America whose original home was in
India.
The cocoa-nut palm (_Cocos nucifera_) is an Indian and South Sea Islands
Prince; but his sway extends now over all tropical countries. The
cocoa-nut palm begins to bear fruit in from seven to eight years after
planting, and it bears on for no less than seventy to eighty years.
Length of days, you see, as well as beauty and beneficence, mark this
royal race which Linn�us placed alone!
Cocoa-nuts are useful in many ways. The milk is pleasant, and in hot
and thirsty countries is no doubt often a great boon. The white flesh--a
familiar school-boy dainty--is eaten raw and cooked. It produces oil,
and is used in the manufacture of stearine candles. It is also used to
make _marine soap_, which will lather in salt water. The wood of the
palm is used for ornamental joinery, the leaves for thatch and
basket-work, the fibre for cordage and cocoa-nut matting, and the husk
for fuel and brushes.
Cocoa and chocolate come from another palm (_Theobroma cacao_), which is
cultivated largely in South America and the West Indies.
Sago and tapioca are made from the starch yielded by several species of
palm. The little round balls of sago are formed from a white powder
(sago flour, as it is called), just as homoeopathic pillules are
formed from sugar. It is possible to see chemists make pills from
boluses to globules, but the Malay Indians are said jealously to keep
the process of "pearling" sago a trade secret. Tapioca is only another
form of sago starch. Sago flour is now imported into England in
considerable quantities. It is used for "dressing" calicoes.
Among those products of the palm which we import most liberally is
"vegetable ivory."
Vegetable ivory is the kernel of the fruit of one of the most beautiful
of palms (_Phytelephas macrocarpa_).
This Prince of Vegetation is a native of South America. "It is
short-stemmed and procumbent, but has a magnificent crown of light green
ostrich-feather-like leaves, which rise from thirty to forty feet high."
The fruit is as big as a man's head. Two or three millions of the nuts
are imported by us every year, and applied to all the purposes of use
and ornament for which real ivory is available.
The Coquilla-nut palm (_Attalea funifera_), whose fruit is about the
size of an ostrich-egg, also supplies a kind of vegetable ivory.
Our ideas of palm-trees are so much derived from the date palm of Jud�a,
that an erect and stately growth is probably inseparably connected in
our minds with the Princes of Vegetation. But some of the most beautiful
are short-stemmed and creeping; whilst others fling giant arms from tree
to tree of the tropical forests, now drooping to the ground, and then
climbing up again in very luxuriance of growth. Many of the rattan palms
(_Calamus_) are of this character. They wind in and out, hanging in
festoons from the branches, on which they lean in princely
condescension, with stems upwards of a thousand feet in length.
There is something comical in having to add that these clinging rattan
stems, which cannot support their own weight, have a proverbial fame,
and are in great request for the manufacture of walking-sticks. They
are also largely imported into Great Britain for canework.
Another very striking genus (_Astrocaryum_) is remarkable for being
clothed in every part--stem, leaves, and spathe--with sharp spines,
which are sometimes twelve inches long. _Astrocaryum murumura_ is
edible. The pulp of the fruit is said to be like that of a melon, and it
has a musky odour. It is a native of tropical America, and abundant on
the Amazon. Cattle wander about the forests in search of it, and pigs
fatten on the nut, which they crunch with their teeth, though it is
exceedingly hard.
The date palm yields a wine called toddy, or palm wine, and from the
Princes of Vegetation is also distilled a strong spirit called arrack.
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