BORASSUS FLABELLIFORMIS. Linn.
Lontarus domestica, Bumph.
Dom, Tad, . ARAB. Pena, Am-Pana, MALEAL, Tal-gach'h, . . I3ENG. Tale, . . . SANSK. Palmyra Brab tree, ENG. Panam maram, . . TAIL Tar ka jhar, . . HIND. Tatti, Penti-tati, . TEL. Rontal, . . JAV. Karata-lamu, . „ Lontar, . . . MALAY. Potu-tadi, . . . „ To eastern nations, the palmyra tree is only in ferior in usefulness to the bamboo, the date tree, and the cocoanut palm. It grows straight to a height of 70 feet, with a girth of 5- feet at bottom and 2} at top. A Tamil poem of Ceylon, the Tale Vihlsam, enumerates 801 purposes to which the palmyra may be applied. The trees have to attain a considerable age before they become fit for timber, as their wood becomes harder and blacker by age, and the harder and blacker it is the better. The wood near the circumference of old trees is very hard, black, heavy, and durable. A cubic foot weighs 65 lbs., and it is calculated to last 80 years. In some parts of the Ceylon and Madras coasts, this tree is very abundant, especially in sandy tracts near the sea, though it is to be seen in most parts of India, and occa sionally so far north as 30°. It is used chiefly for rafters, joists, and reepers. When of good age, the timber is very valuable for this purpose. The trunk is split into 4 for rafters, into 8 for reepers ; these are dressed with an adze. Those of the Jaffna palmyras are famous, and were, in former times, largely exported. From the structure of the wood, it splits easily in the direction of its length, yet supports a greater cross strain than any other wood. Old black palmyra wood was, next to the casuarina, the strongest wood that Dr. Wight tried. One specimen bore upwards of 700 lbs., and five of them gave an average of 648 lbs., though he found some very bad. Mr. Rohde also remarks that it is the strongest wood he tried, retaining for a length of time the position it assumed when loaded, without increase of de flexion. Iron nails soon rust in this wood. The thickness of rafters when trimmed up rarely exceeds two inches four feet from the ground, and one inch at twenty or twenty-four feet from it.
The fruit and the fusiforin roots of the young trees are used as articles of food by the poorer classes, the fruit when young being jelly-like and palatable. Next to Caryota urcns, it is the largest palm on the coast of the Peninsula. The dried leaves aro used for writing upon with an iron style ; also in thatching, making fans and light baskets for irrigation. The fibres of the petioles of the leaves (Palmyra nar) are employed for making twine and small rope ; they are about two feet in length. The large carpenter beetle, Xylo copa, delights in boring this hard wood, though cumboo wood is still more attractive to it. Small canoes arc formed of this tree. Two of the stems lashed to a couple of spars form the usual mode of crossing lakes and rivers in the Circars ; the root forms the head of the canoe, the smaller end is either elevated out of water by the form, or some six inches of the pith is left at that end ; as this decays, a lump of clay supplies its place. Formerly sea-going vessels were planked with this wood, but the iron fastenings were soon destroyed. Boats planked with it were, till the middle of the 19th century, common on the Godavery, being built probably -where sawyers are not procurable. The peculiar structure of the wood of all the palms deserves attention ; it appears formed of a series of hard, stiff longitudinal fibres, not in terlaced or twisted, but crossed at considerable intervals at various angles by similar fibres, which proceed from the soft heart of the tree to the outer part, probably to the leaf-stem. A radial
section of palmyra rafter shows this. The inter stices arc filled up with pith, the proportion of which increases with the distance from the outer part. The wood, known as porcupine wood, is used in England for veneers and inlaying. In Ceylon it is used for rafters, pillars, and posts of native houses. In the sandy parts of Jaffna, in Ceylon, a hollow palmyra is inserted to form a well. The dark outside wood of very old trees is used to some extent in Europe for umbrella handles, walking-canes, paper-rulers, fancy boxes, wafer stamps, and other articles. The timber of the female tree is the hardest and best ; and that of the male tree is never used unless the tree be very old. At certain seasons of the year, thousands are employed in felling and dressing it. Each tree has from 25 to 40 fresh green leaves upon it at a time, of which the natives cut off twelve or fifteen annually, to be employed as thatch, fences, manure, mat, and mat baskets ; bags, irri gation baskets, winnows, hats, caps, fans, um brellas, etc. ; books and olay, tatakoo or puttay, for writing on. In the Northern Kooken it is in seine parts so abundant that it might be termed a forest. It is a rare tree in the southern jungles of the Bombay Presidency. The wood, when pro tected from moisture, is very durable, and may be used with advantage for terraces, etc., when the upper covering is complete. Its fruit, of the size of an ostrich egg, grows in clusters ; but trees from which toddy or palm wine is drawn, cannot bear fruit. When the spathes of the fruit-bearing trees appear, the toddy drawer, climbing to the top of the tree, binds the spathes tightly with thongs to prevent their further expansion, and thoroughly bruises the embryo flowers within. For several succeeding mornings this operation of crushing is repeated, and each day a thin slice is taken off the end of the racemes, to facilitate the exit of the sap and prevent it bursting the spathe. About the morning of the eighth day, the sap begins to exude, when the toddy drawer again trims this truncated spathe, and inserta its extremity Into an earthen pot to collect the juice. These veasds are emptied morning and evening, and the palinyra will continue for four or five months to pour forth its sap at the rate of three or four quarts a day ; but once in every three years the operation Is omitted, and the fruit is permitted to form, without which the natives assert that the tree would pine and die. Tho tree, during the first part of the season, yields a pretty largo quantity of palm wine. This is either drunk fresh drawn from the tree, or boiled down into a coarse kind of syrup called jagari, or it is fermented for dis tillation. The date tree in South India also fur nishes toddy, and the amount of daily drunkenness exceeds all that is ever witnessed in Europe. A farina, called Ila-Pananki jangu mavn, is obtained from the root by treating it as in manufacturing manioc. It is very nourishing. The germinating seeds (Ponatoo, SING.) are boiled and eaten in Ceylon as a vegetable.—Seemun ; Sinunonds ; Drs.
Cleghorn, Gibson ; Mr. Rohde ; Ilarterig, p. 139 ; Sir J. E. Tennent, ii. p. 523.