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CORYPHA

Volume 5 · 540 words · 1797 Edition

Mountain Palm, or Umbrella Tree, in botany: A genus of the order of Palmae, belonging to the monocotyledon class of plants. The corolla is tripetalous; the stamens six, with one pistil; the fruit a monoecious plum. There is only one species, the umbraculata, a native of the West Indies, where it is called codda-panda. It rises to a considerable height, and produces at the top many large palmated, plaited leaves, the lobes of which are very long, and are placed regularly round the end of a long spiny footstalk, in a manner representing a large umbrella. The flowers are produced on a branched spadix, from a compound spathe or sheath; they are hermaphrodite, and each Corypha consists of one petal, divided into three oval parts, and contains six awl-shaped stamens, surrounding a short slender style, crowned with a simple stigma. The germen is nearly round, and becomes a large globular fruit of one cell, including a large round stone. These plums having a pleasant flavour are held in esteem by the Indians.

CORYPHÆNA, in ichthyology, a genus belonging to the order of thoracici. The head is declined and truncated; the branchiopterygian membrane has six rays; and the back-fin runs the whole length of the back. There are twelve species, most of them natives of foreign seas. The most remarkable are the blue and parrot fishes, described by Mr Catesby.—The head of the first is of an odd structure, resembling that of the spermaceti whale; the mouth is small, each mandible armed with a single row of even teeth, so closely joined that they seem entire bones; the iris of the eye is red. On the back is a long pinnate fin, somewhat indented on the edge; behind the gills are two fins, one under the abdomen and another behind the anus. The tail is forked; and the whole fish entirely blue. They are taken on the coasts of the Bahama Islands, and in most of the seas between the tropics.—The parrot-fish hath a large mouth, paved as it were with blunt teeth, closely connected, after the manner of the lupus marinus. The body is covered with large green scales; the eyes are red and yellow; the upper part of the head brown, the lower part and the gills blue, bordered with a dusky red: a streak of red extends from the throat behind the gills, at the upper end of which is a bright yellow spot. The fins are five in number, one extending almost the length of the back, of a bay or cinnamon colour; there are two behind the gills, blended with black, green, and purplish colours, with the upper edge verged with blue: under the abdomen is another red fin verged with blue: under the anus extends another long narrow green fin, with a lift of red through the middle of it: at the basis of the tail on each side is a large yellow spot. The tail is large, forked, and green, with a curved red line running through the middle parallel to the curve, and ending in two points. This fish is more esteemed for beauty than the delicacy of its taste. They are taken on the coasts of Hispaniola, Cuba, and the Bahama Islands.