nt, who dwell in the torrid zone.

This fine palm, which always forms a prominent feature in tropical
scenery, is a native of Southern Asia. It is spread by cultivation
through almost all the intertropical regions of the Old and New
Worlds; but it is cultivated nowhere so abundantly as in the Island of
Ceylon, and those of Sumatra, Java, &c. On the shores of the Red Sea
it advances to Mokha, according to Niebuhr; but it does not succeed
in Egypt. It is cultivated in the lower and southern portions of the
Asiatic Continent, as on the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar, and
around Calcutta. In the island of Ceylon, where the fruit of this tree
forms one of the principal aliments of the natives, the nuts are
produced in such quantities that in one year about three millions were
exported, besides the manufactured produce in oil, &c. According to
Marshall it requires a mean temperature of 72 deg. Its northern limit,
therefore, is nearly the same as the southern limit of our cereals.

Rumphius enumerates thirteen varieties of this palm, but many of these
have now been placed under other genera, and Lindley resolves them
into three species--_C. nucifera_, the most generally diffused
species, a native of the East Indies; and _C. flexuosa_ and _plumosa_,
natives of Brazil. The trunk, which is supported by numerous, small
fibrous roots, rises gracefully, with a slight inclination, from forty
to sixty feet in height; it is cylindrical, of middling size, marked
from the root upwards with unequal circles or rings, and is crowned by
a graceful head of large leaves. The terminal bud of this palm, as
well as that of the cabbage palm (_Euterpe montana_), is used as a
culinary vegetable. The wood of the tree is known by the name of
porcupine wood. It is light and spongy, and, therefore, cannot be
advantageously employed in the construction of ships or solid
edifices, though it is used in building huts; vessels made of it are
fragile and of little duration. Its fruit, at different seasons, is in
much request; when young, it is filled with a clear, somewhat sweet,
and cooling fluid, which is equally refreshing to the native and the
traveller. When the nut becomes old, or attains its full maturity, the
fluid disappears, and the hollow is filled by a sort of almond, which
is the germinating organ. This pulp or kernel, when cut in pieces and
dried in the sun, is called copperah, and is eaten by the Malays,
Coolies, and other natives, and from