The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-12-25
COCONUT PALM IN FULL BLOOM
 PLACED ON VIEW
Collection of Plants at Field Museum Is Constant ly Being Enlarged
 and Increased
By Associated Press

Chicago, December 24-The collec- l tion of plant products at the Field
 museum here is being augmented by
 representations and models of living plants based on living material ob- I tained as far as possible where it naturally grows at it's best. They
 have, besides their faithful realism
 the virtue of always showing the
 plant at the particular stage which
 is botanically most significant: some
 thing which even greenhouse cannot l do. Special important features, if minute, are to be seen enlarged, as
 are the microscopic plants.
 1 This collection is growing and will
 in time include a sufficient number | of typical plants from all divisions
 of the vegetable Kingdom, living and
 extinct, to give the visitor a compre- hensive idea of It's scope and great
 variety. Among them will be not only the well known economic plants
 of the world. but also some of the
 remarkable, botanical rarlties, like the
 parasitic "Rafflesit" of Sumatra, a
 plant of the tropical forest, without i stem or leaves, but with a flower
 the size of half a barrel. which no botanical garden has ever been able
 to rear: the widely different, but equally curious and almost extinct "Tumboa" of the South African des-
 ert, relic of another age; the "vege-
 table sheep of Australia. and others
 known by reputation to botanists. but which only few white men have ever | seen.
 The most recent addition to the ex-
 hibit Is a reconstruction of the top of a coconut palm. As placed in it's
 case. this is to be seen from B vantage point ordinarily enjoyed only by birds
 or monkeys, or by small woody
 haired boys in quest of nuts. The long trunk has of necessity been cut away and even some of the 20-foot leaves could not find room in the case,
 but the visitor sees before him at the level of the eye, the fruiting and Towering portion of the tree. He may se. the whole process of Towering from the first appearance of the bud and it's opening as a flower cluster
 through every stage of the develop ment into the big green fruits and into the more familiar dry, mature nuts which hang in clusters of doz- en to 15 from the lowermost leaf axils.
 In an adjoining case may be seen
 how the coco palm sprouts from the nut and some details of it's structure
 and products. These include the
 "copra." the dried coconut meat or commerce.; coconut oil expressed from if which forms a valuable vegetable fat of increasing importance with the impending decline in the worlds pro- duction of animal fats, highly es- teemed for fine soaps and widely en- tering into the composition of butter
 substitutes. There are fermenteo drinks made from the coco palm sap, tuba" and "toddy" soap and candles; vessels made from the inner
 shell of the coconut; rope, cord. mat ting and brushes made of the fibrous outer husk or "soir;" wood of the coco palm, known as "porcupine wood" and articles made of 1t; thatching and native dress material from the leaves, etc, there being apparently no part of the tree which does not find aoue utilization,