pupunha" on the Amazon,
whose fruit, fibre, leaf, sap, pith and wood meet so large a part of
the primary needs of the aborigines. A noteworthy palm of the eastern
Andean slopes is the "corneto" (_Deckeria_), whose tall, slender trunk
starts from the apex of a number of aerial roots, rising like a cone 6
to 8 ft. above the ground. It is one of the most fruitful of palms,
its clusters weighing from 120 to 200 lb each. Extensive groves of the
coco-nut palm are to be found on the Caribbean coast, the fruit and
fibre of which figure among the national exports. In north-eastern
Colombia, where a part of the year is dry, the "curuas" form the
prevailing species, but farther south, on the slopes of the
Cordilleras up to an elevation of 10,000 ft., the wax-palm, or "palma
de cera" (_Ceroxylon andicola_), is said to be the most numerous. It
is a tall slender palm, and is the source of the vegetable wax so
largely used in some parts of the country in the manufacture of
matches, a single stem sometimes yielding 16-20 lb. Another widely
distributed species in central Colombia is known as the "palmita del
Azufral" in some localities, and as the "palma real" and "palma dolce"
in others. Humboldt says it is not the "palma real" of Cuba (_Oreodoxa
regia_), but in the Rio Sinu region is the _Cocos butyracea_, or the
"palma dolce," from which palm wine is derived. Another palm of much
economic importance in Colombia is the "tagua" (_Phytelephas
macrocarpa_), which grows abundantly in the valleys of the Magdalena,
Atrato and Patia, and produces a large melon-shaped fruit in which are
found the extremely hard, fine-grained nuts or seeds known in the
commercial world as vegetable ivory. The Colombian "Panama hat" is
made from the fibres extracted from the ribs of the fan-shaped leaves
of still another species of palm, _Carludovica palmata_, while in the
Rio Sinu region the natives make a kind of butter ("manteca de
Corozo") from the _Elaeis melanococca_, Mart., by peeling the nuts in
water and then purifying the oil extracted in this way by boiling.
This oil was formerly used for illuminating purposes. The forests are
never made up wholly of palms, but are composed of trees of widely
different characters, including many common to the Amazon region,
together with others found in Central American forests, such as
mahogany and "vera" or lignum vitae (_Zygophyllum arboreum_).