d July. There
are two distinct varieties, one similar to the Nilgiri plant, having
its leaves broad and cordate, and of a rusty colour on the under side;
the other, peculiar to Ceylon, is found only in forests at the
loftiest elevations; it has narrow rounded leaves, silvery on the
under side, and grows to enormous heights, frequently measuring 3 ft.
round the stem. At these altitudes English flowers, herbs and
vegetables have been cultivated with perfect success, as also wheat,
oats and barley. English fruit-trees grow, but rarely bear. Grapes are
grown successfully in the north of the island. The vines were
introduced by the Dutch, who overcame the difficulty of perpetual
summer by exposing the roots, and thus giving the plants an artificial
winter.

The timber trees indigenous to Ceylon are met with at every altitude
from the sea-beach to the loftiest mountain peak. They vary much in
their hardiness and durability, from the common cashew-nut tree, which
when felled decays in a month, to the ebony and satinwood, which for
many years resist the attacks of insects and climate. Many of the
woods are valuable for furniture, and house and shipbuilding, and are
capable of standing long exposure to weather. The most beautiful woods
adapted to furniture work are the calamander, ebony, flowered
satinwood, tamarind, nedun, dell, kadomberiya, kitul, coco-nut, &c.;
the sack-yielding tree (_Antiaris saccidora_), for a long time
confounded with the far-famed upas tree of Java (_Antiaris
toxicaria_), grows in the Kurunegala district of the island. The
_Cocos nucifera_, or coco-nut palm, is a native of the island, and may
justly be considered the most valuable of its trees. It grows in vast
abundance alone the entire sea-coast of the west and south sides of
the island, and furnishes almost all that a Sinhalese villager
requires. Its fruit, when green, supplies food and drink; when ripe,
it yields oil. The juice of the unopened flower gives him toddy and
arrack. The fibrous casing of the fruit when woven makes him ropes,
nets, matting. The nut-shells form drinking-vessels, spoons, &c. The
plaited leaves serve as plates and dishes, and as thatch for his
cottage. The dried leaves are used as torches, the large leaf-stalks
as garden fences. The trunk of the tree sawn up is employed for every
possible purpose, from knife-handles to door-posts; hollowed out it
forms