Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/570
Vern. :— Nâriyal (H.) ; Nârikel, dâb (B.) ; Narel, nariyéla (Guz.) ; Narela, narulâ, mâd, mahad (Mar.) ; Tenna, tenga (Tam.); Narikadanu, tenkâia, kobbari, erra-bondala, gujju-narekadam (Tel.); Thenpinna, kinghenna, tengina (Kan.); Tenga, kalapa, nyor kalambir (Malâ.) ; Nur (Mysore).
Habitat : — Cultivated in India, Burma, Ceylon. Indigenous in the Cocos Island and North Andamans. (Kurz.)
Mr. 0. F. Cook, in bis paper on the Origin and Distribution of the Cocoa Palm, published in Vol. VII of Contributions from the National Herbarium, United States of America, brings forward evidence for the American origin of the cocoanut palm. In another paper on the History of the Cocoanut palm in America, published in Vol. 14 of the abovenamed Contributions, he brings additional facts to show that the cocoanut palm was already widely distributed in the New World before the arrival of the Europeans, and that it is not naturally a maritime or humid tropical species, but a native of drier and more temperate plateau regions in South America. (B. D. B.)
An unarmed, erect, tall, handsome, monœcious palm, the greatest beauty of the sea-coast of the Western Peninsula down to Ceylon ; not found wild. Trunk 40-80ft., l-2ft., diam., thickened and ascending at base, inclined black, scarcely forked. Leaves 12-18ft.; leaflets 2-3ft., linear, lanceolate,acuminate, flaccid, bright-green. Petiole 3-5ft., stout, unarmed. Spadix 4-6ft., straw coloured, simply branched, shortly stoutly peduncled ; branches flexuous, densely fascicled. Spathe 2-3ft., narrowly oblong, tapering at both ends, glabrous or downy, spilling longitudinally. Male flowers small, yellowish ; sepals 1/12in., ovate, acute ; petals ¼in., oblong-lanceolate ; filaments subulate, anthers linear, erect. Female flowers : — few bibracteolate ;. Sepals about lin., concave ; petals rather smaller. Ovary tented on an orange coloured disk. Fruit trigonously obovoid, oblong or sub-globose, 6-10in. long. Endosperm forming a thick white layer of a fleshy fibrous substance adherent to the membranous testa, which again is adherent to the almost stony-black endocarp. The embryo is opposite one pore only. This is the most noticeable character of the fruit. The coir is from the dense fibres beneath the exocarp.