The fruit is something similar in appearance to a small, unripe jack-fruit, with an equally rough exterior.

In the opinion of most who have tasted it, its virtues have been grossly exaggerated.

To my taste it is perfectly uneatable, unless fried in thin slices with butter; it is even then a bad imitation of fried potatoes.

The bark of this tree produces a strong fibre, and a kind of very adhesive pitch is also produced by decoction.
The cocoa-nut and palmyra woods at once introduce us to the palms of Ceylon, the most useful and the most elegant class in vegetation.

For upward of a hundred and twenty miles along the western and southern coasts of Ceylon, one continuous line of cocoa-nut groves wave their green leaves to the sea-breeze, without a single break, except where some broad clear river cleaves the line of verdure as it meets the sea.
Ceylon is rich in palms, including the following varieties: The Cocoa-nut.