With temperatures below zero and airlines offering lots of discount airfares, why am I shivering by the woodstove instead of lolling under a palm tree on some beautiful Caribbean island? Can you remember where and when you first saw a palm tree? I was 17, spending spring vacation in Florida with a friend, but as I recall I was far more impressed with the deliciously balmy temperatures than the trees back then.
The palm trees I remember best are the ones on the island of Grenada the year we took the children on a Caribbean vacation. We had our first glimpse of real jungle as our airplane settled down on the primitive runway among a few stray goats. We gaped at the sights as we were driven through the night at break-neck speeds from the airport, careening through tiny villages and around hairpin turns.
Grenada's beaches are pristine, and back in 1972 we had them all to ourselves. Our vacation included a dozen adventures - a visit to the prison to buy sandals made by the convicts, listening to a steel band playing classical music every afternoon, being invited for lunch and a game of cricket with the Briggs, a family who'd befriended us, New Year's Eve at the Berian Bible church, but best of all, climbing Qua Qua, the only mountain on the island.
Guided by Albert, a towering black man in immaculate white pants and shirt, we headed up a muddy track through the steamy jungle, surrounded by a tangle of vines and giant palms and exotic blossoms. The sounds of chattering monkeys and squawking, rainbow-hued birds filled the humid air. Tiny striped lizards darted across our path as we squelched our way up the soggy trail. A breath-taking view greeted us at the top as we looked down on the Grand E'Tang, a crater lake far below.
After we'd consumed the lunch Albert had provided, we headed back down the mountain. Our barefooted guide led the way, marching along with ease and remaining upright and unblemished by a single mud spatter. The Taylors, on the other hand, slipped and slid from one tree trunk to another on the chocolate pudding path, more often landing on our behinds than our feet. When it came time for a break, we just flopped uncaring into the mud.
While we rested, Albert, his mouth pinched from trying not to laugh at the five mud pies in his care, cut down a palm tree beside the trail with his machete to provide us with some thirst-quenching heart of palm. Located at the tiptop of the trunk where new leaves begin to sprout, this succulent white vegetable is as thick and long as a man's leg if taken from a good-sized tree and is called "Millionaire's Salad" in many Caribbean hotels.
The hearts are usually taken from coconut trees, the one species of palm easily identified by even a novice, as it always has a few conspicuous coconuts hanging among its feathery leaves. That's because it knows no season and produces its flowers and fruits all through the year. The bloom looks like an exotic, upside-down tree, a queerly jointed miniature made of polished ivory, but it quickly turns brown on exposure to the light. Its cluster of flowers produces 10 to 20 full-sized nuts in six months, which will be fully ripe in less than a year's time.
A coconut, with its buoyant husk and leathery skin, can take ocean voyages that last for months. Tossed by a wave onto a new beach that is suitable, the nut will send out a sprout from its soft eye. One end of this sprout digs its sharp point down into the sand to start a root system, then sends a spear upward, the new baby palm tree. Until it produces its first leaf, it is supported by a spongy tissue that fills the cavity inside the nut. This edible custard is supposed to be ambrosial, but Albert couldn't find us a ripe nut on the mountain.
The coconut palm, unlike many of its cousins, is rarely cluttered with the rat's nest of hanging dead leaves. As the old leaves die, they break off, leaving a permanent scar on the trunk. These scars are what enable the natives to climb up coconut palms as if they were ladders.
The royal palm is the most elegant in the palm family, with a straight, smooth-ringed gray trunk. These regal palms are planted in stately rows leading up to government offices on most Caribbean islands. It turns out that it was not called royal because of its elegant growth habits, however, but to honor General Roy Stone, an American engineer in Puerto Rico.
An amazing looking palm species called a cohune, grows to a height of 100 feet. I saw a grove of them in Belize, some of their plume-like fronds as long as 30 feet. Unlike those of most palms, they point skyward, only flopping over when they die and are replaced by new ones.
There are more than 1,500 species of palms in the world, and at this moment I'd much rather be studying some in the flesh than in a book. I can picture one of those powered sugar beaches in Grenada, ringed with swaybacked coconut palms, and remember basking in a tropical sun so hot it would evaporate raindrops, making them feel like tiny prickles on your skin. Ah, well, time to put another log in the wood stove.
