Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1893 — SILK-COTTON TREE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SILK-COTTON TREE.

One of the Most Interesting Features of the West Indies. Among the interesting natural objects of tropical America the gigantic silk-cotton tree is one of the most frominent features in the landscape, t is widely distributed, but is seldom seen to more advantage than on the grazing pens in the high valleys of Jamaica, where it is a most imposing giant, when its smooth, straight trunk is seen towering like a great lighthouse from somo commanding hill, with its majestic crown of spreading branches outlined against the sky. A young tree is protected by sharp thorns, but as it grows older these disappear. When the tree is some four or five feet in diameter wooden brackets begin to grow out from the trunk under the branches, which thus become strongly braced as they begin to spread. At the same time the trunk becomes ventrlcose near the ground and soon great buttresses arise between tho trunk and the roots. These buttresses run close to the surfaco of the ground for a great distance, sometimes 50 feet. Between these buttresses tho Spaniards usod to stable their horses. Above these buttresses the trunk is smooth and cylindrical, sometimes twelvo feet in diameter and TOO feet high. Just before tho tree flowers the branches arc bare, but after the fruit has set tho new leaves burst out and nourish the great pods until they have swelled to their full size. Then tho loaves fall and tho sun beats down upon tho pods until they are fully ripe, when they burst and swell into great snowy bundles of cotton. Specimens of tho silk-cotton troo vary in shape, and solitary trees in open meadows often branch near tho ground; but in a well-grown typical

tree the trunk runs straight up, without branches, like a massive cylindrical tower, well above the heads of all ordinary trees Or oven tho tallest palms. At the top It carries a crown of brandies stretching out horizontally to an incrcdiblo distance.

SILK-COTTON TREE OF JAMAICA.