Coconut palm

“ In some few instances it is obvious that this variability is of later date than culture. The most conspicuous case is that of the coconut. This valuable palm is found on nearly all tropical coasts, in America, as well as in Asia, but in Africa and Australia there are many hundreds of miles of shore line, where it is not found. Its importance is not at all the same everywhere. On the shores and islands of the Indian Ocean and the Malay Archipelago, man is chiefly dependent upon it, but in America it is only of subordinate usefulness. ”

“ For a long time the people were afraid to approach the tree or to taste the nuts, because they had grown out of a human head, and so, by the falling of the ripe fruit, there grew up a dense grove of coconut palms. ”

“ Foot-prints on the shore, and trails through the scrub, soon brought us to a group of shanties under the palm trees, and therefore close to the shore line. The coconut palm seems to thrive best just beyond high-water mark, and on any flat at about that level behind the furthest point reached by the water. Trees are often to be seen with the soil round their roots partially washed away on one side of the trunk. ”

“ They grow rapidly and in about a year they have attained their full dimensions. As the coconut matures, the outer envelope begins to turn brown and to shrink. With the shrinkage the well-known, roughly triangular shape of the fruit becomes emphasized.
A full-sized fruit cluster consists of twelve to twenty coconuts. The flowering continues the year around and a tree in prime condition yields upwards of 100 fruits annually, distributed over four or five harvests. The record in the Philippines is 470 nuts from a tree.
The leaves of the coco palm are attached directly to the main stem. ”

“ The coconut is a cultivated tree. It may be met with in some spots distant from human dwellings, but whenever such cases have been subjected to a closer scrutiny, it appears that evidently, or at least probably, huts had formerly existed in their neighborhood, but having been destroyed by some accident, had left the palm trees uninjured. Even in South America, where it may be found in forests at great distances from the sea-shore, it is not at all certain that true native localities occur, and it seems to be quite lost in its natural condition. ”

“ Large coco palm plantations often twenty to 100,000 acres in extent, are being established in various parts of the world to keep pace with the demand which is increasing with the decline in the supply of animal fats. The coconut supply to the United States has hitherto come chiefly from the American tropics, Central America, Colombia, Brazil, and the West Indies. The trees in this region are lately threatened by a fungus disease, the so-called "bud-rot," which has gained a foot-hold. ”

“ The fleshy mesocarp of the fruit of Elaeis guineensis of western tropical Africa yields, when crushed and boiled, " palm oil." Coco-nut oil is extracted from the oily endosperm of the coconut. Wax is exuded from the stem of Ceroxylon andicola and Copernicia cerifera. A variety of " dragon's blood, " a resin, is procured from Daemonorops Draco and other species. Edible fruits are yielded by the date, the staple food of some districts of northern Africa. The coco-nut is a source of wealth to its possessors; and many of the species, e.g. ”

“ Whoever wishes to consult the omens in this manner provides himself with eight or ten strips of green palm leaf, preferably the narrow leaves of the coconut, and in the presence of the soothsayer, proceeds to tie at random in each strip a series of single knots about a half inch apart, not counting the knots as he ties them, but all the time murmuring to himself the question which he wishes answered. ”

“ On these low-lying islands the coconut palms thrive well and bear abundantly, for there is nothing to impede the passage of the strong salt breeze right across the level surface of the Haapaian group, and without this strong salt air the coconut cannot thrive. ”

“ The thick husk of the coconut resists harm from sea water, near which this palm prefers to grow in just such a sandy, shelly soil as the uprising reef affords. The nuts that so often fall into the surf or are carried out by rivers make long voyages without losing their vitality. Here, again, the situation of most coral islets in the course of currents is advantageous, for thus not only these nuts but other useful seeds and colonizing elements drift directly to their doors, as it were. ”

“ The natives have a saying that the cocoanut palm loves the sound of the human voice, and, [514] like the magpie and robin, will not flourish away from the habitations of men. Like the palmyra palm in the north of Ceylon, the cocoanut in the south yields most of the necessaries of life. Its fruit furnishes food, its shell drinking vessels, its juice palm wine and sugar, its stem materials for building, its leaves roofs, matting, baskets and paper. ”

“ More useful is the native cocoanut palm, that grows everywhere, both in and out of cultivation. Several million cocoanuts are exported from the Isthmus every year. The brown, fuzzy shell of the cocoanut, as we know it in the grocery store at home, is only the innermost husk. As it grows on the tree, the cocoanut is as big as a football, and as smooth and green as an olive. Cut through the thick husk of a green cocoanut with a machete, and you have a pint or more of a thin, milky liquid that is one of the best thirst-quenchers in the world. ”

“ The glossy green fronds of the bananas throw other verdure altogether into the shade, while in dignity and beauty the cocoanut palms excel all other trees. The tall, straight stem of the palm rises from the roots without leaf or branch until the plumed head is reached, which bends slightly under its wealth of pinnated leaves and fruit combined. If you happen to pass these gardens after nightfall, especially those in the immediate environs of the city, mark the phosphorescent clouds of dancing lights which fill the still atmosphere round about the vegetation. ”

“ There are palms, loaded with cocoanuts, which lean out over the water’s edge at a very pronounced angle. One species is armed with fearful spines, but bears an edible nut, while the cohune palm grows great clusters of hard, oily nuts. ”

“ Flowers of every hue and fragrance blossomed along the way.
The cocoa-nut palm abounded, of all heights and ages. The older ones had a smooth bark, made of its own dead leaves, crowned with long, bending branches, made up of spines like ribs going out of a backbone. It begins in these spines, and they seem to grow together as new ones shoot out, so that the trunk is itself a leaf. These leaves hang dead and loose in their upper edges, ragged and gray, but bind the trunk at their juncture. Every new burst of leaves gives a new cincture and a new raggedness. ”

“ The world-encircling cocoanut-palm is found about the shore of tropical North America, and there, as elsewhere, serves a great variety of uses, being a greater blessing, especially to the natives and the poorer descendants of European and African immigrants, than even the royal palm. The economic importance of its wood-fibres, leaves, and fruit are too well known to require re-enumeration. ”

“ Then the nuts gradually swell out to an enormous size, and ripen very slowly, even under the brilliant tropical sun. (I will admit that the tropics are hot, though in other respects I hold them to be arrant impostors, like that precocious American youth who announced on his tenth birthday that in his opinion life wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.) But the worst thing about the cocoa-nut palm, the missionaries always say, is the fatal fact that, when once fairly started, it goes on bearing fruit uninterruptedly for forty years. ”

“ In the interval of sowing, the natives often sow the land with pulse or sesame, the stubble of which is used as manure for the next rice-crop.
At intervals scattered over the plain, there are groves of cocoanut and palmyra-palms, like islands in the vast sea of rice-fields, with small villages built under their shade. As the betel-nut palm is the most graceful in India, so the palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis) is undoubtedly the ugliest, with its black stem the same size all the way up, and coarse fan-shaped leaves. It is chiefly from this tree that the Shanars draw the toddy. ”

“ To impress upon one the character of the vegetation of the coast, a group of coco palms must be imagined, waving their long leaves wildly in the wind or shining like gold in the sun. Essentially a littoral product, the coco-palm is rarely found far inland, and the equally beautiful and tropical plant, the banana, leaves it behind, in the advance up the mountains, as the foot-hills are reached. ”

“ The fruit consists of a thick external husk or rind of a fibrous structure, within which is the ordinary coco-nut of commerce. The nut has a very hard, woody shell, enclosing the nucleus or kernel, the true seed, within which again is a milky liquid called coco-nut milk. The palm is so widely disseminated throughout tropical countries that it is impossible to distinguish its original habitat. It flourishes with equal vigour on the coast of the East Indies, throughout the tropical islands of the Pacific, and in the West Indies and tropical America. ”

“ I wonder that no one has ever discovered in the cocoa-palm a meet emblem of charity. Of all plants that grow, none asks so little, or gives so largely. It matters not how dry and barren is the shallow soil, or how briny the coral-sand, washed by every rising tide, the hardy palm strikes its roots among the fragments of coral, and, bending to the gale, weathers the wild storms, and yields its generous increase as abundantly as its more fortunate brethren in the rich soil of sheltered, well—watered valleys. The poorest islander on the loneliest atoll, possessed of a few cocoa-palms, can exist. ”

“ It has been said that nature seldom produces a tree so variously useful to man as the cocoanut palm. In tropical countries, where it grows abundantly, its leaves are employed for thatching, its fibers for manufacturing many useful articles, while its ashes produce potash in abundance. The fruit is eaten raw, and in many ways is prepared for food; it also yields an oil which forms an important article of commerce. The milk of the fruit is a cooling beverage, and the woody shell of the nut answers very well for a cup from which to drink it. ”

“ Indeed, to take away from Southern India and Ceylon its cocoanut-trees, would inflict upon multitudes a most severe calamity; hence, their owners guard them most carefully, and on no account destroy them until they grow old and of little value except for timber. They are rented out at so much a tree, and sometimes a single tree will be the property of two or more persons. Commonly, the cocoanut-palm is planted in topes or groves, covering a large surface of ground, and arranged in parallel lines, so as to form lanes completely shaded by their uniting leaves. ”

“ They are then covered lightly with mould, the leaf folded over, and a small stone placed on the top, to prevent its opening; in eight or ten days the young shoots appear above the ground; the leaves are then opened to give them light and air, and a shelter from the sun, either in the shape of plantain or banana leaves, is not forgotten; but the coco-nut and other species of palm, on account of their fibrous structure and great durability, are always preferred. ”

“ The cocoa-nut tree requires a sandy and well-drained soil; and although it flourishes where no other tree will grow, it welcomes a soil of a richer quality and produces fruit in proportion. Eighty nuts per annum are about the average income from a healthy tree in full bearing, but this, of course, depends much upon the locality. This palm delights in the sea-breeze, and never attains the same perfection inland that it does in the vicinity of the coast. There are several varieties, and that which is considered superior is the yellow species, called the "king cocoanut." ”

“ The cocoanut palm clusters in dense groves along the beaches, the long leaves murmuring to the sea breeze as they wave to and fro, casting their grateful shade upon the native village. Of all trees none is more useful to tropical man than the cocoanut. ”

“ In the Philippines, the poorest soil seems to give nourishment to the cocoanut-palm; indeed, it thrives best on, or near, the sea-shore, as close to the sea as where the beach is fringed by the surf at high tide. The common cocoanut-palm attains a height of about sixty feet, but there is also a dwarf palm with the stem sometimes no taller than four feet at full growth, which also bears fruit, although less plentifully. ”

“ The coco-palm, although far away from the sea-coast, its native habitat, also flourishes in great perfection, contributing not a little to the splendor of the vegetation in these truly tropical gardens, with its glorious crown of monster leaves. And last, though not least, the plantain and banana claim here the supremacy which everyone accords them over all productions of the tropics. A few plants of each only are sufficient to supply a whole family with bread, vegetables, fruit, and preserves of various kinds. ”

“ By way of vegetables, we had cocoanuts, and bread made of cocoanut flour, which the Kanakas taught us to prepare, and hearts of palms. This latter is one of the rarest of delicacies, and outside the tropics only multimillionaires can afford it. The price, when you get palm hearts in Europe, is higher than that of Russian caviar. For the most part, it is reserved for castaway sailors and buccaneers like ourselves. It is the core taken from the very tip of the cocoanut palm, right where the new leaves form. For each heart, weighing about ten pounds, a noble palm has to be sacrificed. ”