Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1894 — COCOANUTS OF THE SEA. [ARTICLE]

COCOANUTS OF THE SEA.

A Queer Fruit In The Islands Of The Seychelles Group. The coco-de-mer or double-cocoanut palm tree is one of the largest and most remarkable of palms. It is a native of and only found on a small group of islands called the Seychelles. These form an archipelago in almost the middle of the Indian Ocean, consisting of about eighty islands. Seychelles are the home of the so-called sea cocoanut or Maidive double cocoanut—the coco-de-mer. It is the fruit of a peculiar and remarkably fine species of the palm tribe, indigenous to and only found on certain small islands of the group, and nowhere else in the world. Botanists give it the name Lodoicea Seychellamun. The fruit is a large double, oblong, kidney-shaped nut, covered with a thin husk. After the removal of this the fruit has the appearance of two oblong nuts firmly joined together for £ver half their length, and which often weigh from thirty to forty pounds. They are borne in bunches, each consisting of nine or ten nuts, so that a bunch will often weigh 400 pounds. It takes ten years to ripen its fruit, the albumen of which is similar in appearance and lines the inner surface of the nut, but, unlike that of the common cocoanut, is too hard and horny to serve as food. The shell is converted into many useful and ornamental articles by the island natives. But the most important part is the leaves, which are made into hats and baskets.

So great has the demand been of late years for these that to obtain them the trees were cut down, and, no care being taken to extend new plantations, in 1864 the leading botanists in England petitioned the Government for protection against this wasteful destruction, for fear that this slow-growing, unique species would eventually become extinct. It appears, however, from recent information that in one of the islands alone there are many thousands of the trees. It is true that for many centuries the fruit of this palm tree was only known from specimens of it, which, floating out to sea from the islands, were borne to and cast upon the Maldive and other coasts, the islands, the home of the tree, being at that period unknown. So rare, curious, and mysterious a fruit was held in high regard and esteem not only for a supposed religious significance, but in medicine is was believed to be a sovereign antidote to poison. From its rarity it commanded a great price in the Orient. The husk of the nut is a black, rind-like substance, a quarter of an inch thick. Under this is a shell something in character and thickness like that of the ordinary edible cocoanut. The kernel or meat of the nut lines the interior of the shell to a thickness of about an inch. The coco-de-mer was of old believed by the superstitious Orientals to be fruit of some sub-marine palm tree. Rare finds of such nuts as were thrown up on the seashore were valued by the Brahmins and Hindu fakirs or mendicant priests, who, cutting them- apart, would decorate the polished halves with bands of carving in low relief of inscriptions from the Hindu scriptures. So finished, these formed valued and sacred begging bowls, in which mendicant priests received alms'of money or food.—[Detroit Free Press.