The New International Encyclopædia/Talipot Palm

TALIPOT PALM (Hind, tālpāt, from Skt. tālapatra, palm-tree leaf, from tāla, palm-tree + patra, leaf), Great Fan Palm (Corypha umbraculifera). The noblest palm of the East Indies, a native of Ceylon, Malabar, etc. Its straight cylindrical trunk, 60 to 100 feet high, is crowned with a tuft of enormous palmate plaited leaves, divided near the outer margin into numerous segments, and united to the trunk by spiny leafstalks. The leaves are usually about 8 or 10 feet long, exclusive of the leafstalk, which is 7 or 8 feet long. At the age of thirty or forty years the tree produces a long pyramidal cluster of whitish flowers rising to the height of 30 feet from the midst of its crown of leaves, and dividing into simple alternate branches, the lower of which sometimes extends laterally 20 feet. After maturing the numerous globose fruits about an inch and one-half in diameter the tree generally dies. The leaves are used for covering houses, for making tents, and for many other purposes. The leaves of this palm are used in Malabar for writing upon, characters being traced upon them with an iron style. They are prepared for this purpose by boiling, drying, damping, rubbing, and pressing. The soft central part of the stem, like that of many other palms, yields a kind of sago.