Macaiba or Macauba, Cocos ventricosa:—Arrud. Cent. Plant. Pern. The description is taken from my centuria of the genera and species of new plants of Pernambuco.
Class, Monoecia. Order, Hexandria.
Gen. Char. Spathe simple; spadix ramose.
Male Flower; calyx, a trifid perianth. Corolla, tripetalous; six stamina; germen barren. Female Flower; calyx trifid; stigmata three; fruit a drupe.
Spec. Char. Stem aculeate, ventricose; leaves pinnate; small leaves ensiform replicate.
Nat. Char. Stem 30 feet long, ventricose, armed with sharp thorns circularly arranged.
Flowers. Spathe monophyllous, lanceolate, concave, large. Spadix divided into many spikes. The female flowers below, the male flowers above; close to which the bases are fixed in cups hollowed in the common peduncle. Calyx, a perianth of three linear pieces, very small, alternate with the petals of the corolla. Corolla, tripetalous, oblong, concave, pointed, yellowish. Stamina consist of six filiform filaments of the length of the corolla and of incumbent anthers, oblong. Pistil, style thick, without a stigma, barren. Female Flowers. Calyx small, whitish, monophyllous, trifid, irregular, permanent. Corolla tripetalous, rounded, the sides imbricate and united in the middle with the nectary. Nectary, a monophyllous corolla which lines and reunites within the bases of the petals. Stamina, none. Pistil consists of a rounded germen, a very short style and three stigmata, simple. Pericarp, a round drupe, of the size of a large jambo or rose apple, or of a small common apple, yellowish: it consists of a ligneous exterior bark which is weak; of a bony nut, an oily almond, and a layer of oily, yellow pulp.
The plant is to be found in Pernambuco, and in some other parts of Brazil.
The oily pulp of the fruit and the almond of the inner stone is eaten, and is sold in the markets. The ventricose or middle part of the stem contains a fecula which is extracted in times of want, and is eaten being prepared in various manners. The leaf contains a fibre fine and strong, like the leaf of the tucum; but like that it is difficult to obtain when dry or suado, and impossible to get it by maceration, for the same happened with this as with the tucum in the experiments which I made. This is a new species, and owing to the middle of the stem being much thicker than the extremities, I have given to it the specific name of cocos ventricosa. For some time I was in doubt whether I should place it in this genus or not, on account of its monopetalous nectary, which lines and unites the petals of the corolla within. The female as well as the male flowers are fixed in cups hollowed in the spike or common peduncle. The female flowers are solitary, that is, each in its cup; the male flowers are two and two.[271]