22 PALM they are used for making knobs and other small wares, similar to those made from vege- table ivory. The vegetable ivory nut was long regarded as the product of a palm, but the Piassata Palm (Attalea funifera) and Fruit Coquilla Nuts. plant of which it is the fruit is found to be- long to a different family. (See PHYTELE- PHAS.) One of the most important products of this family is palm oil, which is obtained from the fruit of elceis G-uineemis of western Africa, where it grows in immense numbers ; its trunk, seldom over 30 ft. high, is covered with the remains of dead leaves, and sur- mounted by a tuft of long, pinnate leaves, with prickly petioles. The flowers are usually dioe- cious, densely crowded in clusters, and in the females succeeded by a cluster 1 to 2 ft. long, in which the fruit is so compactly crowded that the cluster has been compared to a large pineapple; the individual fruits are an inch and a half long, somewhat pear-shaped, and bright red; they consist of an outer fleshy portion containing the oil, and within, forming about one fourth of the whole, a hard stone from which an oil may also be extracted. (See PALM OIL.) A closely related species of elceis (E. melanococca) is found in South America. In this review of the great palm family only the species most valuable to man have been mentioned ; there are but few which may not be made useful in some manner, and the va- rious products afforded by those here referred to are to be found in more or less abundance and perfection in a multitude of other species. Palms are often cultivated in warm coun- tries for their useful products, but in northern
- climates large specimens with their peculiar
forms and strikingly tropical foliage can only be enjoyed, save in a few exceptions, under im- mense structures of glass ; and on account of the great height which the trees attain, a palm house is only within the reach of the very wealthy. The most notable structure of this kind is that at Kew, England, where the house is 362 ft. long, 100 ft. wide, and 64 ft. high, but must soon be raised to allow of the de- velopment of the larger specimens. Palms of small growth and young plants of the larger are often found in greenhouses and stoves. Well developed plants of various species are much used for decorative purposes. Palms may be used with fine effect upon lawns and near the entrance to the house ; but as the foli- age may be injured by heavy winds, only the more robust kinds should be used for this pur- pose. Two species of chamcerops are hardy in France and in portions of England ; these, C. excelsa from Nepaul (see p. 16) and C. Fortunei of north China, also called Chusan palm, are of great value in subtropical gardening, as their large fan-shaped foliage is unlike that of any other plants. These withstand a cold consid- erably below 32, and would be quite hardy in Virginia and southward; north of that they may be used for outdoor decoration if housed for the winter in a dry cellar or even in a barn. In very early times the palm was recognized as a token of victory, and in a more general sense of honor and preeminence, a use still re- tained. The custom of carrying palm branch- es (which of course are properly leaves) on oc- casions of festivity was an ancient one among the Jews, and its observance on Christ's entry into Jerusalem is still commemorated in all Roman Catholic churches on the Sunday be- fore Easter. A curious instance of the influ- ence of religion upon horticulture is in the cultivation of date palms at Bordighera, near Mentone on the Mediterranean ; the date is barely hardy in that locality, but is grown in considerable quantities for the purpose of sup- plying St. Peter's and other churches in Rome, of which it has the monopoly. The leaves of the date are no doubt the true palm branches of the Bible, but in other countries they are represented in the ceremony by such foliage as may be available at that season ; in south- ern and middle Europe the olive is used, and further north the holly ; in most parts of our northern states the branches of the hem- lock (abies Canadensis) serve for palms, and when nothing else is obtainable sometimes the willow has been employed. For an account of the palms of the East, reference may be made to Blame's Rumphia (fol., Amsterdam, 1835-'46), Royle's "Illustrations of the Bot-
