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 winds147 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.
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 fluid148 (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 the149 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.
MALAY BEAR.
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.
150 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 of151 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-like152 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 four153 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 made154 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 nu............