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 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 immemorial155 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.
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.
156 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 ripe157 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.
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 banks158 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.
159 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 the160 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 the161 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.
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,162 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.
