As a rule, the coco-nut has
been dropped by its mother tree on the sandy soil of a sea-beach; and
this is the spot it best loves, and where it grows to the stateliest
height. Sometimes, however, it falls into the sea itself, and then the
loose husk buoys it up, so that it floats away bravely till it is cast
by the waves upon some distant coral reef or desert island. It is this
power of floating and surviving a long voyage that has dispersed the
coco-nut so widely among oceanic islands, where so few plants are
generally to be found. Indeed, on many atolls or isolated reefs (for
example, on Keeling Island) it is the only tree or shrub that grows in
any quantity, and on it the pigs, the poultry, the ducks, and the land
crabs of the place entirely subsist. In any case, wherever it happens to
strike, the young coco-nut sends up at first a fine rosette of big
spreading leaves, not raised as afterwards on a tall stem, but springing
direct from the ground in a wide circle, something like a very big and
graceful fern. In this early stage nothing can be more beautiful or more
essentially tropical in appearance than a plantation of young coco-nuts.
Their long feathery leaves spreading out in great clumps from the buried
stock, and waving with lithe motion before the strong sea-breeze of the
Indies, are the very embodiment of those deceptive ideal tropics which,
alas, are to be found in actual reality nowhere on earth save in the
artificial palm-houses at Kew, and the Casino Gardens at too entrancing
Monte Carlo.
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234