Another Locust there is, which they call the bastard-Locust. This lookes fair, but will not last.
Palmeto the lesse.
There is a tree called the Palmeto, growing neer the Sea-coast, which being a sandy light ground, does not afford that substance of mould, to make a large tree; nor shall you finde in that low part of the Iland, any considerable trees fit for building, which is a main want and hinderance to them that would build there; for, there is no means to transport any from the high lands, by reason of the unpassableness of the wayes; the body of this tree I have seen about 45 or 50 foot high, the Diameter seldome above 15 or 16 inches, the rind of a pure ash colour, full of wrinkles, the leaves about two foot and a halfe long, in bunches, just as if you took twenty large flaggs, with their flat sides together, and tied them at the broader ends. With these bunches they thatch houses, laying every bunch by himselfe on the lathes, somewhat to overhang one another, as tiles do. This is a very close kind of thatch, keeps dry and is very lasting, and looking up to them on the inside of the room, they are the prettiest becomming figures that I have seen of that kind, these leaves grow out no where but at the tops of the trees.
Palmeto Royall.
Another kind of Palmeto there is, which as it has an addition to the name, has likewise an addition to the nature: for I beleive there is not a more Royall or Magnificent tree growing on the earth, for beauty and largeness, not to be paralell’d; and excels, so abundantly in those two properties and perfections, all the rest, as if you had ever seen her, you could not chuse but fall in love with her; I’m sure I was extreamly much, and upon good and Antique Authority: For if Xerxes strange Lydian love the Plantane tree, was lov’d for her age, why may not I love this for her largeness? I beleive there are more women lov’d for their largeness then their age, if they have beauty for an addition, as this has; and therefore I am resolv’d in that poynt, to go along with the multitude, who run very much that way: but how to set her out in her true shape and colour, without a Pencill, would aske a better Pen then mine; yet I will deliver her dimensions as neer truth as I can, and for her beauty much will arise out of that. But first I will beg leave of you to shew her in her Infancy, which is about tenne or twelve years old, at which time she is about seventeen foot high, her body and her branches, and that part which touches the ground, not unlike an Inkhorne, which I have seen turn’d in Ivory, round at the bottome and bellied like that part which holds the Inke; and the stem or body of the tree, growing less, as that part which holds the Pens, but turn’d by a more skilfull workman; and some of this body, part tawny, part purple, with rings of white and green mixt, that go about her; and these rings at sixe inches distance. This stem, to be about sixe foot and a halfe high, upon which growes the bottome of the stalks, thinne as leaves of Parchment, enwrapping one another so close as to make a continued stem, of the same bigness, for two foot and a halfe above the other, every one of those filmes or skins, bearing a stalk, which lessens so insensibly, from the skinne to the poynt as none but the great former of all beauty can make the like.
These stalks or branches, are of severall lengths, those that are the most inward, are the highest; and every one of those stalks adorn’d with leaves, beginning a little from the filmes to the poynt, and all these leaves like Cylinders, sharp at either end, and biggest in the middle; that part of the stem which is the enwrappings of the filmes of a pure grasse green, shining as parchment dyed green, and slickt with a slick-stone, and all the branches with the leaves, of a full grass green spreading every way, and the highest of them eight foot above the green stem, the other in order to make a well shap’t Top, to so beautifull a stem. The branches sprout forth from the middle, or intrinsick part of the tree, one at once; and that wrapt up so close as tis rather like a Pike then a branch with leaves, and that Pike alwayes bends toward the East; but being opened by the Suns heat spreads the leaves abroad, at which time the outmost or eldest branch or sprig below withers and hangs down, and pulls with it the filme that beares it, and so both it and the filme which holds it up turne of a russet colour and hang down like a dead leafe, till the wind blowes them off; by which time the Pike above is become a branch, with all its leaves opened; then comes forth another Pike, and then the next outmost branch and filme below, falls away as the former, and so the tree growes so much higher, as that branch took roome, and so a pike and a dead leafe, a pike and a dead leafe, till she be advanc’t to her full height which will not be till 100 years be accomplished: about thirty or forty years old, she will bear fruit, but long before that time, changes her shape, her belly being lessened partly by the multiplicity of roots, she shoots down into the earth (nature foreseeing how great a weight they were to beare, and how great a stress they were to suffer, when the winds take hold of so large a head, as they were to be crown’d with) and partly by thrusting out sustenance and substance, to raise and advance the stem or body (for out of this belly which is the storehouse of all this good it comes) so that now she becomes taper, with no more lessning then a well shap’t arrow, and full out as straight, her body then being of a bright Ash colour, with some dapples of green, the filmes a top retaining their smoothness and greenness, only a little variation in the shape, & that is a little swelling neer the place that touches the stem or body, not much unlike an Urinall, so that the swelling that was in the body, is now raised up to the filmes or skinns above. But at this age, the branches stand not so upright, as when the tree was in her minority, but has as great beauty in the stooping and declension, as she had in the rising of her branches, when her youth thrusts them forth with greater violence and vigour, and yet they had then some little stooping neer the poynts. And now there is an addition to her beauty by two green studds, or supporters, that rise out of her sides, neer the place where the filmes joyne to the tree, and they are about three foot long, small at the place from whence they grow, but bigger upwards, purely green and not unlike the Iron that Glasiers use to melt their Sawder with.
page. 76.
One growes on one side of the tree, the other on the other side, and between these two of the same height, on either side the tree, a bush upon which the fruit growes, which are of the bigness of large French grapes, some green, some yellow, some purple, and when they come to be purple, they are ripe, and in a while fall down, and then the yellow becomes purple, and the green yellow; and so take their turnes, till the tree gives over bearing. These fruits we can hardly come by being of so great a height, nor is it any great matter: for the taste is not pleasant; but the Hoggs find them very agreeable to their palats for those that eat of them grow suddenly fat. I have seen an Negre with two short ropes clyme the tree, and gather the fruit, about this time, she is 80 foot high, and continues that forme, without variation; only as she growes older, so taller and larger; and has alwaies green, yellow, and purple fruit, succeeding one another; whether there be blossomes, I know not, for I never went so high as to look. This sort of trees I have seen of all sises, from ten, to two hundred foot high; and I have been told by some of the antient Planters, that when they came first upon the Iland, they have seen some of them three hundred foot high: And some reasons I have to perswade me to believe it; for, amongst those that I have seen growing, which I have guest to be two hundred foot high, the bodies of which I measured, and found to be but sixteen inches diameter. And I once found in a wood, a tree lying, which seem’d to have been long fallen; for, the young wood was so grown about her, as standing at one end, I could not see the other: But, having a couple of Negres with me, that were axe-men, I caused them to cut away the wood that grew about the tree, that I might come to the other end, which I thought would never be done, she was so long, and yet a great part of her cut off, and carried away. I measured the diameter of her stem, and found it to be 25 inches.
16 ——— 200
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25 ——— 312
200 ——— 25
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312 ——— 39