Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/388

374 of these is probably the Areng, or sugar palm of Amboyna (Arenga saccharifera), which grows in India and the archipelago. It is a superb tree, with pinnate leaves twenty-five feet long, and is as handsome as it is useful. A number of species belonging to different genera furnish a kind of hair of finer or coarser texture. It is found in the fibrous sheaths of the leaf-stalks and in the jagged edges of the leaves. Cables made of the black, tough fibers of the Areng are preferred by the coasting sailors of the Spanish colonies on account of their elasticity and durability; and they are, moreover, very fine. The hemp palm of Japan and China (Chamærops excelsa, Fig. 5) is available in the hands of the industrious people of those countries for making the finer brooms, light strings, and a thousand articles of daily use. Palms of coarser fiber, like the Piaçaba of Brazil (Leopoldina piacaba), furnish material for blinds, brushes, brooms, and the rollers of mechanical sweepers, which are much more durable than rollers fitted with steel teeth. A waxy exudation forms on the trunks of the wax palm of the Andes (Ceroxylon andicola) and is collected by the natives for purposes of illumination. The Carnauba of Brazil (Copernica cerifera) forms a cerous efflorescence on the inside of its leaves. The natives climb upon the trees of the latter species and beat the leaves with rods, when a fine snow falls from them and is collected on cloths spread upon the ground for the purpose. The wax of the Carnauba is used in commerce, both by itself and associated with other similar substances.

The fruits of the palm are inferior to none. Every child knows what Robinson Crusoe did with his cocoanuts. After dates, this is the most generally diffused fruit of the palm. No drink is more in demand among the Creoles and blacks than the milky kernel of the green cocoanut. When the fruits reach us, the albumen has hardened and become somewhat tough and indigestible. This nut is one of the sources of wealth—in some cases, perhaps, the only one—of the coral islands of Oceania and some other tropical regions. With the top in the sun and its roots bathed by the sea-waters—its favorite station—the cocoa-tree (Cocos nucifera) continues in good condition to the age of seven or eight hundred years. The dry nut, called copra, is marketed by the thousand tons every year, to be employed in various uses for which fats are