The American palms are pre-eminent in beauty, and many of them rank highly in the list of useful plants.
The leaves of the Carnauba (_Corypha cerifera_) furnish an abundance of wax. The lowlands of Guiana, between 3° and 7° N. lat., are frequently covered with this social fan-palm, whose full-grown fronds, when cut and dried in the shade, cover themselves with light-coloured scales. These melt in a warmth of 206° F., and then form a straw-coloured liquid, which again concretes on cooling. It burns with as clear and bright a flame as the best bees’-wax, and will no doubt become a considerable article of trade, when once the spirit of industry awakens in those rich but thinly-populated regions. Like many other palms, the Carnauba does not confine her gifts to one single product. The boiled fruit is edible, and the pith of the young stems affords a nutritious fecula. Roofs thatched with its leaves resist for many years the effects of the weather, and its wood may be used for a variety of purposes.
A kind of wax, exuding from the rings of its trunk, is also produced by the beautiful _Ceroxylon andicola_, which grows on the slopes of the Andes, up to an elevation of eight thousand feet. Even the lofty vault of the Crystal Palace would be unable to span this majestic palm, which, according to Humboldt’s accurate measurement, towers one hundred and eighty feet above the ground, and bears a tuft of fronds each twenty-four feet long.
The cabbage-palm of the Antilles (_Oreodoxa oleracea_) almost rivals the mountain Ceroxylon in magnificence of growth, as its stem, which near to its base is about seven feet in circumference, ascends straight and tapering to the height of 130 feet. Its lofty fronds, moved by the gentlest breeze, are an object of beauty which can hardly be conceived by those who are unused to the magnificent vegetation of a tropical sun. Within the leaves which surround the top of the trunk, the cabbage, composed of longitudinal flakes, like ribands, but so compact as to form a crisp and solid body, lies concealed. It is white, about two or three feet long, as thick as a man’s arm, and perfectly cylindrical. When eaten raw, it resembles the almond in flavour, but is more tender and delicious. It is usually cut into pieces, boiled, and served as an auxiliary vegetable with meat. To obtain this small portion, borne on the pinnacle of the tree, and hidden from the eye of man, the axe is applied to the stately trunk, and its towering pride laid low.