Palm (anatomy)

“ And a palm-thatch shields from the sun aloft!
His dress is woven of palmy strands,
And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands,
Traced with the Prophet's wise commands!
The turban folded about his head
Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid,
And the fan that cools him of palm was made.
Of threads of palm was the carpet spun
Whereon he kneels when the day is done,
And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one!
To him the palm is a gift divine,
Wherein all uses of man combine,--
House, and raiment, and food, and wine! ”

“ As for the palms, I had no idea that so many varieties existed until I visited Buitenzorg—emperor palms, Areca palms, Banka palms, cocoanut palms, fan palms, cabbage palms, sago palms, date palms, feather palms, travelers' palms, oil palms, Chuson palms, climbing palms over a hundred feet long—palms without end, Amen. Small wonder that the palm is regarded with affection wherever it can be grown, for what other tree can furnish food, shelter, clothing, timber, fuel, building materials, fiber, paper, starch, sugar, oil, wax, dyes and wine? ”

“ Of course, too, there are many sorts of palms, more or less fine looking, since it is believed that there are at least one thousand species in existence. All are not equally beautiful to look upon, for some are stunted, others have crooked stems; still, others have short mis-shapen trunks; and not a few appear with their leaves on the surface of the ground, as if without stems altogether.
The sort of palm, however, that constituted the forest into which my companion and I had now penetrated, was one of the most magnificent of the whole tribe. ”

“ If we regard either hand closely, we notice that the surface of the fingers and palms consists of elevations, depressions and lines. The ancients gave these different formations separate names to which they attached certain meanings.
For the purpose of divination the science of palmistry is of great importance, because it is these selfsame lines and elevations in the palm which betray the character and disposition of its possessor. ”

“ A narrow palm suggests feeble temperament, lacking force of imagination, while too broad a one denotes egotism and sensuality. A nature capable of great enjoyment and the possessor of a lively imagination develops a supple and fairly generous expanse of palm ”

“ The palm-tree lifts itself against the moon, and seems to be on fire with it, and droops in a verdant cascade above you, every feathery plume fire-fringed with light. But only one beam, like a shaft of diamond, shall pierce that foliage, and there you stand, with your arms uplifted, braiding pearls around it. You are smiling softly, your hair is down, and filmy sleeves drop back to your shoulders. As you braid, the light prisoned inside changes the pearls to opals. ”

“ One palm, an Astrocaryum, has spines six inches in length up its stem. These spines, black in colour, hard, unbreakable, fall in the bush and spike the foot of the unfortunate who may tread on them. On the palm-stem itself they will wound the unwary hand incautiously or involuntarily thrust in the thicket. Many of the climbing plants have thorns or hook-like prickles, and perhaps the worst are the many kinds of twining river-side palms, whose barbed leaves will tear both flesh and clothing. ”

“ Palm mats make soft bedding for men, and safe cradles for infants; and I have seen labourers in rice grounds well sheltered from sun and heavy rain by a hood and cloak made of one leaf of a palm-tree. The fibres of many kinds of palm are woven into coarse cloth, and most of them furnish materials for strong and durable ropes.
“The juice that flows from the top of several palms, when a small cut has been made either in the bark or at the foot-stalk of a leaf, is as refreshing as Jane’s whey, when fresh; and after standing a few days a strong spirit is often distilled from it. ”

“ Now the puzzle was, how the palm got there. Naturally one would suppose that a seed of the palm had been deposited on the top of the banyan, and had there germinated and thrown out its fronds.
But how did the palm seed get to the top of the fig? Was it planted by the hand of man? or carried thither by a bird? It could not well have been by the latter mode—since the fruit of the palmyra is as large as a child’s head, and each one of the three seeds it contains as big as a goose’s egg!! No bird would be likely to carry about such a bulky thing as that. ”

“ The palm always constitutes an important feature in the landscape, especially when it stands singly or scattered in small groups. It strikes me as being the noblest and most human-like of all trees. On our homeward drive from Guanabacoa, I observed, in the clear moonlight, two palm-trees standing solitary in a large field. ”

“ In their rich soil, and in their perpetually genial climate, trees grow with great rapidity, and they have many noble ones both for size and foliage. The royal palm, with its tall straight columnar trunk of a whitish hue, only uplifts a Corinthian capital of leaves, and casts but a narrow shadow ”

“ When we think of its beauty, its perpendicular straightness, its perennial freshness, its sweet and abundant fruitfulness even in old age, its almost incomprehensible utility, its successful development where other trees fail, its natural propensity to ascend heavenward, its marvelous hardiness with its internal and upward growth, does it not stand to reason that the palm branch should be the most fitting type of Christian triumph and joyous victory? No other tree could be used so well to symbolize the victory of him who is fighting under the banner of King Emmanuel. ”

“ One theory, as you know, is that palmistry derives its authority from the fact that the lines are produced by the opening and closing of the hand—originally, at least—the fundamental markings being inherited, as are our fundamental mental characteristics—and that such alteration of the tissue is directly affected by the character. One stamps his own particular way of doing things upon his palm. ”

“ They are the most hardy of the Palm tribe: where others would perish, or assume a dwarfed or stunted form, the wax-palm raises its stem, in the form of an elegantly-wrought column, a hundred and fifty feet high, with a splendid leafy plume. ”

“ In all the lower animals the palm is large, thick, and hard. Hence D’Arpentigny views the palm as indicative of the physical appetites or animal propensities, and of the degree and intensity of the mental affections to which they give rise. Thus, when the palm is narrow and thin, the temperament is feeble, the imagination without force, and the mind rather subtle than comprehensive; when its size and thickness are in harmony with the proportions of the thumb and fingers, sensual impressions easily excite the mind, but a salutary control is exercised by reason and imagination ”

“ The leaves of palms are either arranged at more or less distant intervals along the stem, as in the canes {Calamus, Daemonorops, fig. 2, &c.) , or are approximated in tufts at the end of the stem, thus forming those noble crowns of foliage (figs. 5, 6, 7) which are so closely associated with the general idea of a palm. In the young condition, while still unfolded, these leaves, with the succulent end of the stem from which they arise, form " the cabbage, " which in some species is highly esteemed as an article of food. ”

“ How many species do you think there are? Up to this time you have thought, perhaps, there was only one, and that was the palm-tree itself. Maybe you have heard of more, such as the sago-palm, the cocoa-nut palm, the date-palm, or the cabbage-palm; and you fancied there might be others—perhaps as many as a dozen! Now you will hardly credit me when I tell you that we know of no less than six hundred species of palms, all differing from each other! I may add, further, that it is my belief that there exist on the earth as many more—that is, the enormous number of twelve hundred. ”

“ The inner part of the hand is termed the palm', and is fleshy and divided by joints or lines: in the case of long-lived people by one or two extending right across, in the case of the short-lived by two, not so extending. ”

“ Which the chaste votary wields.
The palm varies in form from a small leaf to the size of a palm branch, [Pg 32] almost a tree. It is very small in the early Italian pictures, very large in the Spanish pictures. In the Siena pictures it has a bunch of dates depending from it. It is only in late pictures that the palm, with a total disregard to the sacredness of its original signification, is placed on the ground, or under the feet of the saint. ”

“ Some palms have no flowers at all, while another known as the Talipot palm throws up a branching inflorescence to a height of thirty feet above the foliage, and it has been estimated that such an inflorescence has included as many as sixty millions of flowers. ”

“ The palms are all wonderful plants, from whatever point of view we may regard them. The services they render man are incalculable. The date palm gives him its nourishing fruit, the cocoa palm its milky nuts, the sago palm its farinaceous pith, and the Palmyra palm its sweet juice, which becomes wine by fermentation. Then, as for useful things that are neither eatable nor drinkable, the palm tribe furnishes vegetable oil, wax, and ivory, fibres that may be formed into cordage, leaves that may be used for thatching, and timber that may be applied to a hundred different purposes. ”

“ There are always, however, palm-trees in sight, massed in groves, standing in lines, or waving their single tufts in the blue. These are the date-palms, which have no branches on their long poles; each year the old stalks are cut off for fuel, and the trunk, a mass of twisted fibres, comes to have a rough bark, as if the tree had been shingled the wrong way. ”

“ A brief description of the itá palm must be given before we proceed further, or the reader will not understand the peculiar conditions under which these water dwellers live. When full grown, it resembles a tall, cylindrical pillar, with a fan of ten or twelve vast leaves spreading from its extreme top. Each leaf is some ten feet in width, and is supported upon a huge stem about twelve feet in length, looking more like a branch than a leaf-stem. Indeed, a complete leaf is a heavy load for a man. ”

“ And, once more, since the palm grows at a very great height from the ground—I have seen them up to ninety feet in favourable circumstances—this shell stands a very good chance of getting broken in tumbling to the earth, so that it has been necessary to surround it with a mass of soft and yielding fibrous material, which breaks its fall, and acts as a buffer to it when it comes in contact with the soil beneath. ”

“ Lumley, “that what you call palms are really branches of willow in flower, and that all willows bear their flowers, called catkins, before their leaves come out. I think you know, also, that real palms are trees which only grow in hot climates, whose large branch-like leaves grow like a crown, distinguishing them among trees, on the top of the stem, whether it be only one year old or a hundred. I think you can compare a palm-leaf to nothing so aptly as to the ostrich feathers which ladies wear in their head-dresses. ”

“ I had heard that such existed in South America, Africa, and in the Indian countries, and I had read some descriptions of them. But I now perceived that the most glowing description can impart but a very imperfect idea of the beautiful reality, for no work of Nature I have ever looked upon has given me more delight than this—the aspect of a palm-wood. There are many species of palms that do not grow in forests, but only as single individuals, or groups of two or three together, in the midst of other trees. ”

“ Growing, as its leaves do, almost out of the earth, or with only a short trunk, it bears a very marked resemblance to the cycads; but for all this, it is a true palm. Its not having a tall trunk is no reason why it should not be a palm, since many other species of palmaceae are equally destitute of a visible stem. ”

“ Palm and Sole of Man.
The palm of man’s hand is a miracle of adaptations for touch and grasping, but has lost most of the coarse structure formed in response to stimuli of pressure and friction which we saw were common in lower mammals. This indeed he shares with most simian forms. The skin of our hands is now very much what we make it and responds very soon to fresh positive or passive conditions. ”

“ One presents all the grossness and belittling aspect of money-getting, the other the graces, liberality, and ennobling appearance of culture and refinement. Of all the trees in these attractive environs, the palm, in its great variety, challenges one's admiration most. We mention it frequently, for it was our constant delight. At every turn one comes upon it, in its several species,—the cocoa-palm, the palmetto, the cabbage, the assai-palm, the fanshaped-palm, and scores of other varieties. The hand and taste of woman are seen in these gardens of the environs. ”

“ Among them are talipots, palmyras, cocoanuts, the slender areca, the date palm, and the fan palm, already described, spreading out its broad leaves like a peacock's tail. This is often called the traveler's tree, because the trunk is never without a supply of pure water with which to quench his thirst. When pierced with a knife at the juncture of the stems, it yields copious draughts of water. Here one sees palms from Cuba, Guinea, China, Africa, and Brazil, each exhibiting some special characteristics of importance, and all thriving, together with clumps of climbing rattans. ”

“ Its ligneous stalk produces large threads for sewing, and for string. Some of the palms, the cocoa-palmist in particular, yields cool sweet liquid which by evaporation leaves a sugar of a tolerably good quality. In a word, the palm is a far-extended good, an inestimable treasure bestowed by a bountiful Providence on the inhabitants of the soil which produces it. ”