PALMS AND FERNS.
The Cocoa-nut Tree--Its hundred Uses--Cocoa-nut Oil--Coir--
Porcupine Wood--Enemies of the Cocoa Palm--The Sago Palm--The
Saguer--The Gumatty--The Areca Palm--The Palmyra Palm--The
Talipot--The Cocoa de Mer--Ratans--A Ratan bridge in Ceylon--
The Date Tree--The Oil Palms of Africa--The Oil Trade at Bonny--
Its vast and growing Importance--American Palms--The Carnauba--
The Ceroxylon andicola--The Cabbage Palm--The Gulielma speciosa--
The Piaçava--Difficulties of the Botanist in ascertaining the
various species of Palms--Their wide geographical range--Different
Physiognomy of the Palms according to their height--The Position
and Form of their Fronds--Their Fruits--Their Trunk--The Yriartea
ventricosa--Arborescent Ferns.
The graceful acanthus gave the imaginative Greeks the first idea of the
Corinthian capital; but the shady canopy of the cocoa-nut tree would
no doubt form a still more beautiful ornament of architecture, were
it possible for art to imitate its feathery fronds and carve their
delicate tracery in stone.
Essentially littoral, this noble palm requires an atmosphere damp with
the spray and moisture of the sea to acquire its full stateliness of
growth, and while along the bleak shores of the Northern Ocean the
trees are generally bent landward by the rough sea breeze, and send
forth no branches to face its violence, the cocoa, on the contrary,
loves to bend over the rolling surf, and to drop its fruits into the
tidal wave. Wafted by the winds and currents over the sea, the nuts
float along without losing their germinating power, like other seeds
which migrate through the air; and thus, during the lapse of centuries,
the cocoa-palm has spread its wide domain from coast to coast
throughout the whole extent of the tropical zone. It waves its graceful
fronds over the emerald islands of the Pacific, fringes the West Indian
shores, and from the Philippines to Madagascar crowns the atolls, or
girds the sea-border of the Indian Ocean.
But nowhere is it met with in such abundance as on the coasts of
Ceylon, where for miles and miles one continuous grove of palms,
pre-eminent for beauty, encircles the ‘Eden of the eastern wave.’
Multiplied by plantations and fostered with assiduous care, the total
number in the island cannot be less than twenty millions of full-grown
trees; and such is its luxuriance in those favoured districts, where
it meets with a rare combination of every advantage essential to its
growth--a sandy and pervious soil, a free and genial air, unobstructed
solar heat, and abundance of water--that, when in full bearing, it
will annually yield as much as a ton weight of nuts--an example of
fruitfulness almost unrivalled even in the torrid zone.
[Illustration: COCOA-NUT TREE.]
No other tree in the world, no other plant cultivated by man,
contributes in _so many ways_ to his wants and comfort as this
inestimable palm; and it is a curious illustration of its innumerable
uses, that some years ago a ship from the Maldive Islands touched at
Galle, which was entirely built, rigged, provisioned, and laden with
the produce of the cocoa-tree. Besides furnishing their chief food
to many tribes on the coast within the torrid zone, the nut contains
a valuable oil, which burns without smoke or smell, and serves,
when fresh, for culinary purposes. Consisting of a mixture of solid
(_stearine_) and fluid (_elain_) fat, it congeals at a temperature
of 72°; but both its component substances acquire additional value
after having been separated by means of the hydraulic press; for while
the liquid part furnishes an excellent lamp-oil, the solid fat is
manufactured into candles rivalling wax, and at the same time not much
dearer than tallow.
This important product first became known in the European markets at
the beginning of the present century, and is now a considerable article
of commerce, so that, to meet the constantly increasing demand, new
plantations are continually forming on the coasts of Ceylon, Java, and
other islands of the Indian Ocean.
The fibrous rind or husk of the nut furnishes coir, a scarcely less
important article of trade than the oil itself. It is prepared by being
soaked for some months in water, for the purpose of decomposing the
interstitial pith, after which it is beaten to pieces until the fibres
have completely separated, and ultimately dried in the sun. Ropes made
of coir, though not so neat in appearance as hempen cords, are superior
in lightness, and exceed them in durability, particularly if wetted
frequently by salt water. From their elasticity and strength they are
exceedingly valuable for cables. Besides cordage of every calibre,
beds, cushions, carpets, brushes, and nets are manufactured from the
filaments of the cocoa-nut husk, while the hard shell is fashioned into
drinking-cups, spoons, beads, bottles, and knife-handles. From the
spathes of the unopened flowers a delicious ‘toddy’ is drawn, which,
drunk at sunrise before fermentation has taken place, acts as a cooling
gentle aperient, but in a few hours changes into an intoxicating wine,
and may either be distilled into arrack--the only pernicious purpose
to which the gifts of the bounteous tree are perverted--or soured into
vinegar, or inspissated by boiling into sugar.
The strong tough foot-stalks of the fronds, which attain a length of
from eighteen to twenty feet, are used for fences, for yokes, for
carrying burthens on the shoulders, for fishing-rods; the leaflets
serve for roofing, for mats, for baskets, for cattle-fodder; and their
midribs form good brooms for the decks of ships. Cooked or stewed, the
cabbage or cluster of unexpanded leaves is an excellent vegetable,
though rarely used, as it necessarily involves the destruction of
the tree; and even the tough web or network, which sustains the
foot-stalks of the leaves, may be stripped off in large pieces and used
for straining.
After the cocoa-nut tree has ceased to bear, its wood serves for many
valuable purposes--for the building of ships, bungalows, and huts, for
furniture and farming implements of every description.
When we consider the numerous gifts conferred upon mankind by this
inestimable tree, we cannot wonder at the animation with which the
islander of the Indian Ocean recounts its ‘hundred uses,’ or at the
superstition which makes him believe that, by some mysterious sympathy,
it pines when beyond the reach of the human voice. But man is not the
only being that profits by its gifts, for wherever it grows, its sweet
and nutritious nuts are eagerly sought for by many animals. The small
black long-clawed cocoa-nut bear (_Ursus malayanus_), which inhabits
Sumatra and Borneo, and surpasses all other members of the Ursine
family by its surprising agility in climbing, though far from despising
other fruit, yet shows by its name to which side its inclinations
chiefly lean. The East Indian Palm-martin (_Paradoxurus typus_ or
_Pougouni_) and the sprightly Palm-squirrel (_Sciurus palmarum_)
likewise climb the cocoa-palms, and, perforating the soft and unripe
nuts, eagerly sip their juice. The ubiquitous Rat bites holes into the
cocoa-nuts close to their stalk, taking good care not to gnaw the shell
where the juice would run out and defraud it of its meal.
[Illustration: MALAY BEAR.]
[Illustration: PALM SQUIRREL.]
Even the birds diminish the produce of the cocoa-nut grove. The Noddy
(_Sterna stolida_) builds his nest between the foot-stalks, and picks
so busily at the blossom, when stormy weather prevents him making any
long excursions, that on many islands he is considered as a chief cause
of the sterility of numerous palms.
In every zone we find nations in a low degree of civilisation living
almost exclusively upon a single animal or plant. The Laplander has
his reindeer, the Esquimaux his seal, the Sandwich Islander his
taro-root; and thus also we find the natives of a great part of the
Indian Archipelago depending for their subsistence upon the pith of
the Sago palm (_Sagus fariniferus_). This tree, which is of such great
importance to the indolent Malay, as it almost entirely relieves him
of the necessity of labour, grows at first very slowly, and is covered
with thorns. As soon, however, as the stem is once formed, it shoots
upwards with such rapidity that it speedily attains its full height
of ten yards, with a girth of five or six feet, losing in this stage
its thorny accompaniments. The crown is larger and thicker than that
of the cocoa-nut tree; the efflorescence colossal, forming an immense
bunch, the branches of which spread out like the arms of a gigantic
candelabrum. The tree must, however, be felled before the fruit begins
to form, as otherwise the farina would be exhausted, which man destines
for his food. When the trunk has been cut and split into convenient
pieces, the pith is scooped out, kneaded with water, and strained, to
separate the meal from the fibres. One tree will produce from two to
four hundredweight of flour, which is mostly consumed on the spot. The
Sago palm serves to feed several millions of men, and a great quantity
of its produce is exported to Europe.
The Sago palm forms large forests, particularly on swampy ground in
Borneo and Sumatra, in the Moluccas and New Guinea. Mushrooms of an
excellent flavour frequently cover the mouldering trunks, and in the
pith the fat grubs of the _Cossus saguarius_, a large lamellicorn
beetle, are found, which the natives consider a great delicacy when
roasted.
The Gomuti (_Gomutus vulgaris_), which almost rivals the cocoa by
the multiplicity of its uses, is likewise a native of the Indian
Archipelago. On seeing its rough and swarthy rind, and the dull
dark-green colour of its fronds, the stranger wonders how the unsightly
tree is allowed to grow, but when he has tasted its delicious wine he
is astonished not to see it cultivated in greater numbers. Although
the outer covering of the fruits has venomous qualities, and is used
by the Malays to poison springs, the nuts have a delicate flavour,
and the wounded spathe yields an excellent toddy, which, like that
of the cocoa and palmyra palms changes by fermentation into an
intoxicating wine, and on being thickened by boiling furnishes a kind
of black sugar, much used by the natives of Java and the adjacent
isles. The reticulum or fibrous net at the base of the petioles of
the leaves constitutes the gumatty, a substance admirably adapted to
the manufacture of cables, and extensively used for cordage of every
description. The small hard twigs found mixed up with this material
are employed as pens, besides forming the shafts of the sumpits or
poisoned arrows of the Malays, and underneath the reticulum is a soft
silky material, used as tinder by the Chinese, and applied as oakum in
caulking the seams of ships, while from the interior of the trunk a
kind of sago is prepared.
The Areca palm (_Areca Catechu_) bears a great resemblance to the
cocoa-nut tree, but is of a still more graceful form, rising to the
height of forty or fifty feet, without any inequality on its thin
polished stem, which is dark green towards the top, and sustains
a crown of feathery foliage, in the midst of which are clustered
the astringent nuts, for whose sake it is carefully tended. In the
gardens of Ceylon the areca palm is invariably planted near the wells
and watercourses, and the betel plant, which immemorial custom has
associated to its use, is frequently seen twining round its trunk.
The Palmyra palm (_Borassus flabelliformis_) celebrated in verse and
prose for the numerous benefits it confers upon mankind, extends from
the confines of Arabia to the Moluccas, and is found in every region
of Hindostan from the Indus to Siam, the cocoa and the date tree being
probably the only palms that enjoy a still wider geographical range.
In northern Ceylon, and particularly in the peninsula of Jaffna, it
forms extensive forests; and such is its importance in the Southern
Dekkan, and along the Coromandel coast, that its fruits afford a
compensating resource to seven millions of Hindoos on every occasion of
famine or failure of the rice crop. Unlike the cocoa, which gracefully
bends under its ponderous crown, the palmyra rises vertically to its
full height of seventy or eighty feet, and presents a truly majestic
sight when laden with its huge clusters of fruits, each the size of an
ostrich’s egg, and of a rich brown tint, fading into bright golden at
its base. It is not till the tree has attained a mature age that its
broad fan-like leaves begin to detach themselves from the stem; they
climb from the ground to its summit in spiral convolutions, forming a
dense cover for many animals--ichneumons, squirrels, and monkeys, that
resort to it for concealment. In these hiding-places the latter might
easily defy the sportsman; but they frequently fall victims to a silly
curiosity, for when he is accompanied by his dog, they cannot resist
the temptation of watching the animal’s movements, and, coming forth to
peep, expose themselves to a fatal shot.
The stalks of the decayed leaves remain partly attached to the trunk,
affording supports to a profusion of climbing and epiphytic plants,
which hide the stem under a brilliant tapestry of flower and verdure.
When the spathes of the fruit-bearing trees exhibit themselves, the
toddy-drawer forthwith commences his operations, climbing by the
assistance of a loop of flexible jungle-vine, sufficiently wide to
admit both his ancles and leave a space between them, thus enabling him
to grasp the trunk of the tree with his feet and support himself as he
ascends. Having pruned off the stalks of fallen leaves, and cleansed
the crown from old fruit-stalks and other superfluous matter, he binds
the spathes tightly with thongs to prevent them from farther expansion,
and descends, after having thoroughly bruised the embryo flowers within
to facilitate the exit of the juice. For several succeeding mornings
the operation of crushing is repeated, and each day a thin slice is
taken off the end of the racemes, to facilitate the exit of the sap
and prevent its bursting the spathe. About the eighth morning the sap
begins to exude, an event which is notified by the immediate appearance
of birds, especially of the ‘toddy bird,’ a species of shrike,
(_Artamus fuscus_), attracted by the flies and other insects which
come to feed on the luscious juice of the palm. The crows, ever on the
alert when any unusual movement is in progress, keep up a constant
chattering and wrangling; and about this time the palmyra becomes the
resort of the palm-martin and the graceful genet, which frequent the
trees in quest of birds. On ascertaining that the first flow of the
sap has taken place, the toddy-drawer again trims the wounded spathe,
and inserts its extremity in an earthen chatty to collect the juice.
Morning and evening these vessels are emptied, and for four or five
months the palmyra will continue to pour forth its sap at the rate of
three quarts a day. But once in every three years the operation is
omitted, and the fruit is allowed to form, without which the natives
assert that the tree would pine and die.[17] The hard and durable wood
of the palmyra, which, consisting like the other palms of straight
horny fibres, can easily be split into lengths, is said to resist the
attacks of the termites, and is used universally in Ceylon and India
for roofing and similar purposes. The leaves, finally, are employed for
roofs, fences, mats, baskets, fans, and paper.
The Talpot or Talipot of the Singalese (_Corypha umbraculifera_) rises
to the height of one hundred feet, and expands into a crown of enormous
fan-like leaves, each of which when laid upon the ground will form a
semicircle of sixteen feet in diameter, and cover an area of nearly
two hundred superficial feet. These gigantic foliaceous expansions
are employed by the Singalese for many purposes. They form excellent
fans, umbrellas, or portable tents, one leaf being sufficient to
shelter seven or eight persons; but their most interesting use is for
the manufacture of a kind of paper, so durable as to resist for many
ages the ravages of time. The leaves are taken, whilst still tender,
cut into strips, boiled in spring water, dried, and finally smoothed
and polished, so as to enable them to be written on with a style, the
furrow made by the pressure of the sharp point being rendered visible
by the application of charcoal ground with a fragrant oil. The leaves
of the palmyra similarly prepared are used for ordinary purposes; but
the valuable documents are written to-day, as they have been for ages
past, on strips of the talipot.
The currents of the sea sometimes drift to the shores of the Maldives,
and even to the south and west coasts of Java and Sumatra, a nut,
exceeding the ordinary cocoa-nut many times in size, with the
additional peculiarity of presenting a double, or sometimes even a
triple form, as if two separate fruits had grown together. These
mysterious gifts of the ocean, the product of an unknown tree were
believed to be of submarine origin, and to have the wonderful power of
neutralising poisons. On the Maldive Islands they were the exclusive
property of the king, who either sold them at an exorbitant price, or
made presents of them to other potentates. At length, about a hundred
years ago, the French traveller Sonnerat discovered in the uninhabited
Seychelles the home of the _Lodoicea Sechellarum_, which, like the
cocoa, grows on the strand of that small and secluded group, and drops
its large nuts into the sea, which then carries them along to the
east. The trunk of the Lodoicea rises to the height of forty or fifty
feet, and bears a crown of immense fan-like leaves, upwards of twenty
feet long and fifteen broad, with foot-stalks seven feet long. As soon
as the real origin of the wonderful drift nuts became known, they of
course immediately lost their imaginary value, to the great vexation,
no doubt, of the Maldive potentate, who thus found himself deprived of
the best part of his scanty revenues.
The Ratans, a most singular genus of creeping plants, luxuriate in the
forests of tropical Asia. Sometimes their slender stems, armed with
dreadful spines at every joint, climb to the summit of the highest
tree; sometimes they trail along the ground; and while it is impossible
to find out their roots among the intricate tangles of the matted
underwood, their palm-like tops expand in the sunshine, the emblems of
successful parasitism. They frequently render the forest so impervious,
that the distinguished naturalist Junghuhn, while exploring the woods
of Java, was obliged to be accompanied by a vanguard of eight men,
one-half of whom were busy cutting the ratans with their hatchets,
while the others removed the stems. These rope-like plants frequently
grow to the incredible length of four or even six hundred feet, often
consisting of a couple of hundred joints two or three feet long, and
bearing at every knot a feathery leaf, armed with thorns on its lower
surface. Though often extremely disagreeable to the traveller, yet they
are far from being useless. The natives of Java and the other islands
of the Eastern Archipelago cut the cane into fine slips, which they
plait into beautiful mats, manufacture into strong and neat baskets, or
twist into cordage of such strength and durability that it is even used
with success in the formation of bridges across the watercourses and
ravines.
On turning from the Indian Ocean to Arabia and Africa, we enter upon
a new world of palms, several of which are no less valuable than the
cocoa-nut or the palmyra.
The date-tree (_Phœnix dactylifera_), sung from time immemorial by the
poets of the East, is as indispensable as the camel to the inhabitants
of the wastes of North Africa and Arabia, and, next to the ‘ship of
the desert,’ the devout Mussulman esteems it the chief gift of Allah.
Few palms have a wider range, for it extends from the Persian Gulf to
the borders of the Atlantic, and flourishes from the twelfth to the
thirty-seventh degree of northern latitude. Groves of dates adorn the
coasts of Valencia in Spain; near Genoa its plantations afford leaves
for the celebration of Palm Sunday; and in the gardens of southern
France a date-tree is sometimes seen growing among the oranges and
olives. But it never bears fruit on these northern limits of its
empire, and thrives best in the oases on the borders of the sandy
desert.
[Illustration: DATE TREE.]
The date-palm is propagated by shoots, and the female tree bears its
first fruits after four or five years. It is said to attain to an age
of two centuries, but is rarely left standing longer than eighty years,
when the trunk is tapped in spring, producing a kind of toddy, which
is consumed in great quantities in ‘Biledulgerid,’ or the long line of
oases situated to the south of the Atlas, and pre-eminently called the
‘land of dates.’
It is not to be wondered at that the tribes of the desert so highly
value a tree which, when in full growth, bears as much as two
hundredweight of dates, and by enabling a family to live on the produce
of a small spot of ground, extends as it were the bounds of the green
islands of the desert. It is considered criminal to fell it while still
in its vigour, and both the Bible and the Koran forbid the warriors of
the true God to apply the axe to the date-trees of an enemy.
In Arabia the date palms of El Medinah are celebrated above all others
for the excellence of their fruit, which were the favourite food of
the Prophet--a circumstance investing them in the eyes of all true
believers with a certain degree of sanctity. Their stately columnar
stems here seem higher than in other lands, and their lower fronds,
which in Egypt are lopped off about Christmas time to increase the
flavour of the fruit, are allowed to remain unmutilated. One of the
reasons for the excellence of Medinah dates is the quantity of water
they obtain. Each garden or field has its well; and, even in the
hottest weather, the water-wheel floods the soil every third day. The
date-tree can live in dry and barren spots; but it loves the beds of
streams, and places where moisture is procurable. Books enumerate 139
varieties of date trees. Of these between sixty and seventy are well
known, and each is distinguished as usual, among Arabs, by its peculiar
name.
The best kind, El Shelebi, is packed in skins or in flat round boxes
covered with paper, and sent as gifts to the remotest parts of the
Moslem world, for the pilgrim to the Holy Cities would be badly
received by the women of his family if he did not present them on his
return with a few boxes of this fruit. Imagination has also done its
best to invest the better kinds of dates with a legendary interest.
Thus, the Ajwah is eaten but not sold, because a tradition of the
Prophet declares that whoso breaketh his fast every day with six or
seven of the Ajwah date need fear neither poison nor magic. The third
kind, El Hilwah, also a large date, derives its name from its exceeding
sweetness. Of this tree the Moslems relate that the Prophet planted a
stone, which in a few minutes grew up and bore fruit. The Wahski on one
occasion bent its head and salaamed to Mahomet as he ate its fruit, for
which reason even now its lofty tuft turns earthwards. The Sayhani is
so called because, when the founder of El Islam, holding Ali’s hand,
happened to pass beneath it, it cried, ‘This is Mahomet the Prince of
the Prophets, and this is Ali the Prince of the Pious.’ Of course the
descendants of this intelligent tree hold a high rank in the kingdom of
palms.
The citizens of Medinah delight in speaking of dates as an Irishman
does of potatoes--with a kind of familiar fondness: they eat them for
medicine as well as food. The fruit is ripe about the middle of May,
and the gathering of it forms the Arab’s vintage. The people make merry
the more readily because their favourite fruit is liable to a variety
of accidents; droughts injure the tree, locusts destroy the produce,
and thus the date crop, like most productions which men are imprudent
enough to adopt singly as the staff of life, is subject to failure.
[Illustration: OIL PALM.]
Towards the equator the date-tree disappears, while the Doum (_Hyphæne
thebaica_), distinguished from most other palms by its branching trunk,
each branch being surmounted by a tuft of large stiff flabelliform
leaves, assumes a conspicuous place in the landscape. Its fruits, which
are of the size of a small apple, and covered with a tough yellow
lustrous rind, have a sugary taste, and serve for the preparation of
sherbet. The old leaf-stalks with their thorns and sheathes, which
remain attached to the trunk, render the task of climbing it next to
impossible. The chief seat of this beautiful palm are the banks of the
Nile, in the region of the cataracts. In Kordofan the Delebl palms form
large clumps with tamarinds, cassias, adansonias, and various mimosas.
Straight as an arrow and perfectly smooth-rinded, this magnificent tree
rises to the height of a hundred feet, bearing large fan-like leaves,
attached to foot-stalks ten feet long, and armed with mighty thorns.
From ten to twenty large bunches of nuts, as big as a man’s head,
hang beneath the fronds, but unfortunately these fine-looking fruits
disappoint the taste.
Thus various forms of palms flourish along the banks of the Nile, but
in general Africa has a smaller variety of these trees to boast of
than either Asia or America. On the other hand, the forests of Brazil
have no palms at all comparable in commercial importance to the Cocos
butyracea and the Elæis gumeensis, the oil-teeming fruit trees of
tropical West Africa. The productiveness of the Elæis may be inferred
from its bearing clusters of from 600 to 800 nuts, larger than a
pigeon’s egg, and so full of oil that it may be pressed out with the
fingers. As long as the slave trade reigned along the coast of Guinea,
these vegetable treasures remained unnoticed; but since England began
to raise her voice against this infamous traffic, they have become the
object of an immense and constantly increasing commerce.
The American palms are pre-eminent in beauty, and many of them rank
highly in the list of useful plants.
The leaves of the Carnauba (_Corypha cerifera_) furnish an abundance of
wax. The lowlands of Guiana, between 3° and 7° N. lat., are frequently
covered with this social fan-palm, whose full-grown fronds, when cut
and dried in the shade, cover themselves with light-coloured scales.
These melt in a warmth of 206° F., and then form a straw-coloured
liquid, which again concretes on cooling. It burns with as clear
and bright a flame as the best bees’-wax, and will no doubt become
a considerable article of trade, when once the spirit of industry
awakens in those rich but thinly-populated regions. Like many other
palms, the Carnauba does not confine her gifts to one single product.
The boiled fruit is edible, and the pith of the young stems affords a
nutritious fecula. Roofs thatched with its leaves resist for many years
the effects of the weather, and its wood may be used for a variety of
purposes.
A kind of wax, exuding from the rings of its trunk, is also produced
by the beautiful _Ceroxylon andicola_, which grows on the slopes of
the Andes, up to an elevation of eight thousand feet. Even the lofty
vault of the Crystal Palace would be unable to span this majestic palm,
which, according to Humboldt’s accurate measurement, towers one hundred
and eighty feet above the ground, and bears a tuft of fronds each
twenty-four feet long.
The cabbage-palm of the Antilles (_Oreodoxa oleracea_) almost rivals
the mountain Ceroxylon in magnificence of growth, as its stem, which
near to its base is about seven feet in circumference, ascends straight
and tapering to the height of 130 feet. Its lofty fronds, moved by
the gentlest breeze, are an object of beauty which can hardly be
conceived by those who are unused to the magnificent vegetation of a
tropical sun. Within the leaves which surround the top of the trunk,
the cabbage, composed of longitudinal flakes, like ribands, but so
compact as to form a crisp and solid body, lies concealed. It is white,
about two or three feet long, as thick as a man’s arm, and perfectly
cylindrical. When eaten raw, it resembles the almond in flavour, but
is more tender and delicious. It is usually cut into pieces, boiled,
and served as an auxiliary vegetable with meat. To obtain this small
portion, borne on the pinnacle of the tree, and hidden from the eye of
man, the axe is applied to the stately trunk, and its towering pride
laid low.
Besides its cabbage, the Oreodoxa furnishes another great delicacy
to the table. After the removal of the heart, a kind of black-beetle
deposits its egg in the cavity, from which fat grubs are developed,
growing to the size and thickness of a man’s thumb. These, though
disgusting in appearance, when fried in a pan, with a very little
butter and salt, have a taste which savours of all the spices of India.
Both the Oreodoxa and the Ceroxylon are far surpassed in height by the
Californian firs and the Eucalypti of Australia, but no other trees
rise so proudly in the air on shafts comparatively so slender. While
the enormous trunks of the Sequoias and Wellingtonias remind one of the
massy pillars of our old gothic churches, the graceful palms recall
to our memory the slender Ionic or Corinthian columns which adorn the
masterpieces of Grecian architecture.
The oil of the Corozo (_Elæis oleifera_) is usually burnt in the
houses and churches of Carthagena and New Granada; and the _Oenocarpus
disticha_ is cultivated in Brazil, as it furnishes an excellent oil for
culinary purposes. The Pirijao (_Gulielma speciosa_) is planted round
the huts of the Indians, and replaces in some districts the Mauritia as
the tree of life. The Piaçava (_Attalia funifera_), whose stone-hard
dark-brown nuts are manufactured into rosaries by the inhabitants
of Villa Nova de Olivenza, is far more important, on account of its
fibres, which, unknown a few years ago, are now imported into England
in large quantities, where they serve for making brooms; and the
amazingly hard nuts of the Cabeza di Negro (_Phytelephas_), rivalling
ivory in whiteness, solidity, and beauty, are extensively used by our
turners for similar purposes.
Though no trees are more characteristic of the tropics than the palms,
yet specimens are found far within the temperate regions. Along with
the date-tree the _Chamærops humilis_ graces the environs of Nizza,
and the _Areca sapida_ flourishes in the mild insular climate of New
Zealand (38° S. lat). In Africa, the _Hyphæne coriacea_ grows at Port
Natal (30° S. lat.), and in America the palms extend to 35° S. lat.,
both in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and in Chili, where the Choco
indicates the extreme limits of the family.
As these species are able to exist under a mean annual temperature of
58°, they might possibly be made to adorn the gardens of Penzance; most
palms, however, require a mean temperature of from 70° to 72°, and
on advancing towards the equator increase in beauty, stateliness of
growth, and variety of form. Their chief seats are the lower regions
of the torrid zone; but as some species range far to the north or
south, thus others ascend the mountain-slopes, almost to the limits of
perpetual snow.
In South America, the _Ceroxylon andicola_ and the _Kunthia montana_
are found growing at an altitude of 6,000 and 9,000 feet, and in the
Paramo de Guanacos, Humboldt even saw palms 13,000 feet above the level
of the sea.
Besides the height of the shaft, the position of the leaves serves
chiefly to impart a more or less majestic character to the palms:
those with drooping leaves being far less stately than those whose
fronds shoot more or less upwards to the skies. Nothing can exceed the
elegance of the Jagua palm, which along with the splendid Cucurito
adorns the granite rocks in the rapids of the Orinoco at Atures. The
fronds, which are but few in number, rise almost perpendicularly
sixteen feet high, from the top of the lofty columnar shaft, and their
feathery leaflets of a thin and grass-like texture play lightly round
the tall leaf-stalks, slowly bending in the breeze. In the palms with a
feathery foliage, the leaf-stalks rise either immediately from a brown
ligneous trunk (cocoa-nut, date), or, as in the beautiful Palma Real of
the Havana, from a smooth, slender, and grass-green shaft, placed like
an additional column upon the dark-coloured trunk. In the fan-palms,
the crown frequently rests upon a layer of dried leaves, which impart a
severe character to the tree.
[Illustration: YRIARTEA VENTRICOSA.]
The form of the trunk also varies greatly; sometimes it is extremely
short, as in _Chamæropshumilis_; and sometimes, as in the ratans,
assumes a bush-rope appearance. In some species it is smooth and
unarmed, in others rugged or bristling with spines. In the American
Yriarteas it rests upon a number of roots rising above the ground. Thus
the _Y. exorrhiza_, frequently stands upon a dozen or more supports,
embracing a circumference of twenty feet; and the _Y. ventricosa_ is
still more curious, as the spindle-shaped trunk, which at both ends is
scarce a foot thick, swells in the middle to a threefold diameter, and,
from its convenient form, is frequently used by the Indians for the
construction of their canoes.
The form and colour of the fruits is also extremely various. What a
difference between the large double nuts of the Lodoicea and the date--
between the egg-shaped fruits of the Mauritia, whose scaly rind gives
them the appearance of fir-cones, and the gold and purple peaches of
the Pirijao, hanging in colossal clusters of sixty or eighty from the
summit of the majestic trunk.
The family of the ferns is spread over the whole earth, but chiefly
abounds in the vicinity of the tropics. Most of these plants love
the shady and damp ground of the primitive forest, others attach
themselves with their roots to rocks or trees. In the equatorial
regions several of their species attain arboreal dimensions, with stems
from twelve to thirty feet high and extensive crowns of large fronds,
imitating the stately tufts of palms. But they do not possess the noble
elegance of these kings of the vegetable world; and their stems, of a
sombre brown colour, are rather an image of decrepid old age than of
the youthful vigour which we admire in the growth of the palms. They do
not seem to love the highest temperature of the equator, but rather the
milder climate of the mountainous regions near the tropics. Here they
frequently stand singly in the thicket, particularly where a waterfall
impregnates the air with moisture, or on the borders of sources and
ponds. No parasites settle upon them, no bird constructs its nest among
their fronds, no quadruped burrows in the mouldy ground where they take
root, even the ants disdain to build on their sapless stems, and thus
they make the impression of friendless aliens in a convivial group.
[Illustration: ARECA PALM.]
[Illustration: THE BANANA AND THE PLANTAIN.]