very marked in its nature, and is specially
interesting to naturalists; fine specimens are to be seen all over the
island. Its most remarkable peculiarity is that it flourishes about
forty or fifty years without flowering; then it seems to arrive at
maturity, blooms in regal style, yields its abundant seed, and
dies,--the only vegetable growth known which passes through such a
uniformly prolonged process of ripening and decay, not forgetting the
misnamed century plant. The flower of the talipot is a tall, pyramidal
spike of pale yellow blossoms, standing twenty feet above its heavy
dark-green foliage like a huge military pompon. It is pronounced by
botanists to be the noblest and largest flower in the world, and this
is certainly so if we consider the whole clustering bloom as being one
flower. The leaves of the tree when full-grown are large and of a deep
green, but when young they are a pale yellow, and are then dried and
used for writing upon. Leaves of the talipot have been measured in
Ceylon which have attained the length of twenty feet, and they are
used by the natives for the erection of tents. The author has seen in
Brazil leaves of what is known as the inaja palm fifty feet long and
ten or twelve wide.

The young leaves of the palmyra palm are also employed for
manuscripts, or rather were until lately. They are prepared by
steeping them in hot water or milk, after which they are dried and
pressed between pieces of smooth wood. The ancient Mexicans before
Pizarro's time used the leaves of the aloe for a similar purpose. The
talipot palm is the queen of its tribe.

The betelnut is the product of the areca palm, and resembles a nutmeg
in shape and size. A couple of hundred generally form the annual yield
of a single tree. Like the cocoanut or our American chestnut, the
fruit grows inside of a husk, russet colored, and fibrous in its
nature. Farther to the eastward, among the Straits Settlements, the
areca palm is known as the Penang-tree because of its predominance in
that well-wooded island, where human life exhibits only its most
sensuous and lowest form, and where vegetation, fruits, and flowers
revel in exuberance.

The banian-tree with its aerial roots is indigenous to Ceylon,
flourishing after its peculiar fashion in all parts of the island. At
a point on the coast about half-way between Colombo and Galle, there
is a grand specimen of this self-producing arboreal giant. The road
passes directly through