A PALM-LEAF FAN.

BY CAROLINE A. CREEVEY.

When ministers preach sermons they take texts. We will make a text out of a palm-leaf fan.

Palms do not grow around Brooklyn, where I live; but the children of North Carolina, and further south, know their straight slim palmetto-tree, bearing a cluster of large frondlike leaves at the top, as we know a chestnut-tree. Indeed, one of the Southern States is called the Palmetto State, and has a palm-tree in its State emblem.

Small palms may be obtained at a florist's, and are fashionable parlor ornaments. But in a greenhouse they do not grow very large. In hot countries they sometimes reach a height of 150 feet. The bud at the top must not be broken off, else the tree will die; for, unlike Northern trees, palms do not branch, but continue always to grow straight up. As the leaves become old, they drop off, leaving curious scars on the trunk. New leaves grow one at a time from the apex. A maple-tree branches in all directions, and you may pinch off its buds anywhere without interrupting its growth. But it is rare to see a palm with even two branches. Such are called forked palms, referring to old-fashioned two-tined forks. Another curious thing about a palm is that it has no bark. My fan-handle is the natural stem of the leaf, and it has never had more bark than it has now.

Have you noticed a trunk of a hickory or chestnut tree which has been sawn straight across? There is a distinct centre, with rings of wood around it, growing larger and larger, all covered by bark. On such trees the outside ring of wood forms new every year, and if you can count the rings you can tell how old the tree is. When the tree is cut lengthwise into boards, these rings make beautiful grainings. A palm-tree has no apparent centre, no rings of wood, and no real bark. It is a very different kind of tree from the chestnut. There is wood, of course, in the palm trunk, else it would not be stiff enough to stand up so straight and tall. But the wood is in threads, long and slender, scattered without order through the trunk. The dots in the end of my fan-handle are the tips of threads of wood. If you were to see a palm sawn across you would find hundreds of similar dots. You cannot tell how old the palm is. The cut end of a cornstalk will show the same kind of structure, woody dots in soft juicy tissue. Grasses grow in the same way, and so do orchids, lilies, hyacinths, daffodils, iris, flag-root, cat's-tails, and many of our pretty spring wild flowers—-the yellow dog-toothed violet, lily-of-the-valley, Solomon's-seal, etc. Our grains—corn, wheat, oats, rye—are humble but useful members of this same grand division of Endogens. All other trees and herbs which have bark, wood, and pith, and which when long lived increase by additional rings of wood under the bark, are Exogens.

Next examine the spread-out part of our fan. Ridges start from a common centre, where the stem joins the blade, and radiate towards the circumference. These ridges are the paths for the veins, and all leaves whose veins run side by side are called parallel-veined leaves. A plantain leaf shows this plainly. A chestnut leaf has an arrangement of veins like a feather. There is a central midrib, from which veins spring, running across the leaf, joined irregularly with intertwining veinlets. These leaves are net-veined, and grow on exogens. The parallel-veined leaves of endogens often clasp and surround the stem, the upper leaf growing from within the lower. Even the seed of endogens grows differently from that of exogens. A grain of corn sends up one first leaf; so do lilies and grains. A squash seed sends up two first leaves. The first leaves of a seed are cotyledons, and the one-leafed seed is monocotyledonous, while two-leafed seeds are dicotyledonous.

Banana-trees are endogens, and produce such abundant fruit in their native soil that ground which planted in wheat would support two persons, if planted with bananas would nourish fifty. If you were cast away on a desert island you would fare better if the trees above you were endogens than if they were exogens. A grove of bananas and a cocoanut palm would support you better than chestnuts, hickories, oaks, and maples.