Note 80 — IV. CONCERNING INDIA THE LESS.[71]

So Ibn Batuta—“Of this sort of trees the palm will produce fruit twelve times in the year, each month supplying a fresh crop: so that you will see upon the trees the fruit of some large, of others small, of others dry, and of others green. And this is the case always.” (See p. 176.)

The account of the coco-palm, though slightly mythicized, is substantially correct. In the third year of the palm’s growth the fronds begin to fall, a new frond appearing at the end of every month. Of these there are twenty-eight, more or less, on a full-grown tree. On a single tree there are about twelve branches, or spadices, of nuts. Most of the young fruit falls off, only a few coming to perfection; but as from ten to fifteen nuts on an average are produced on one branch, a single tree may produce eighty to one hundred nuts every year. (Drury’s Useful Plants of India.)