TALIPAT PALM, or Great Fau Palm, Corypha umbraculifera, the noblest palm of the East Indes, a native of Ceylon, Malabar, etc. It grows to the height of 60, 70, or even 100 ft., and has a straight cylindrical trunk, crowned with a tuft of enormous palmate plaited leaves, which are divided near the outer margin into numerous seg ments, and are united to the trunk by spiny leaf-stalks. The leaves are usually about 18 ft. long, exclusive of the leafstalk, and 14 ft. broad; a single one being sufficient to protect 15 or 20 men from rain. At the age of 30 or 40 years the tree flowers, and, after ripening fruit, generally dies. It produces a long conical erect spadix, rising to the height of 30 ft. from the midst of its crown of leaves, and dividing into simple alternate branches, the lower of which sometimes extend laterally 20 ft., the whole covered with whitish flowers, and forming a very beautiful and magnificent object. The fruit is very
abundant, globose, and about an inch and a half in diameter. The leaves are used for covering houses, for making tents, and for many other purposes. On occasions of cere mony every Singhalese noble is followed by an attendant, who carries above his head a richly ornamented talipat palm leaf, which is capable of being folded up like a fan, and is then not thicker than a man's arm, and wonderfully light. The leaves of this palm are used in Malabar for writing upon, characters being traced upon them with an iron style. They are prepared for this purpose by boiling, drying, damping, rubbing, and pressing. The soft central part of the stem, pounded and made into bread, has often been of great use in times of scarcity.