PALMYRA PALM, Borassus flabelliformis, a species of palm with a magnificent crown of fan-shaped leaves, a native of the East Indies. The stem attains a height of 25-40, or even 60 ft., and tapers slightly upward. The leaves are about four feet long, with stalks of about the mine length, the stalks spiny at the edges; each leaf having 70-80 rays. The fruit is somewhat triangular, about the size of a child's head: having a thick. fibrous, and rather succulent yellowish-brown or glossy black rind, and containing three seeds each as large as a goose's egg. The Palmyra palm is the most common palm of India, growing spontaneously in many districts, cultivated in others, and reachinn. as far u. as lat. 30'. It is of slow growth; and the wood near the circumference of the stem in old trees is very hard, black, heavy, durable, susceptible of a high polish, and valuable, easily divided in a longitudinal direction, but very difficult to cut across. The Palmyra palm abounds greatly in the n. of Ceylon, forming extensive forests; and the timber is exported to the-opposite coast of India, being of superior quality to that which is produced there. It is much used in house building. The stalks of the leaves are used for making fences, etc. The leaves are used for thatching houses; for making baskets, mats, hats umbrellas, and large fans;,and for writing upon. Their fibers are employed
for making twine and small rope; they are about two feet long, and very wiry. A fine clown found at the base of the leaf stalks is used for straining* liquids, and for stanching, wounds. The Palniyra palm yields palm-wine, and of course also arrack and sugar (Piggery). It furnishes great part of the palm-wine, sugar, and arrack of India. See AMUCK. The fruit ismooked in a great variety of ways, and used for food. The seeds are jelly-like, and palatable when young. A bland fixed oil is extracted from the fruit. The young plants, when a few inches high, are esteemed as a culinary vegetable, being boiled and eaten generally with a little of the kernel of the cocoa-nut; and sometimes they are dried and pounded into a kind of meal. Multitudes of the inhabitants of the IL of Ceylon depend almost entirely on the Palmyra palm for the supply of all their wants. In the "Palmyra regions" of the southern Dekkan vast numbers of the people subsist chiefly on the fruit of this palm.
The Deleb palm (q.v.). so important to the inhabitants of central Africa, is believed to be nearly allied to the Palmyra palm.