Kittool Palm

Kittool Palm (Caryota urens), a beautiful tree, 50 to 60 feet high, native to India and Ceylon, with bi- or tri-pinnately divided leaves, 20 feet long and 10 or 12 feet across, with cuneate segments and a sheathing fibrous base. Toddy or palm-wine and jaggery, or palm-sugar, are prepared from its flower-spikes; sago from the interior of its stem; and kittool or Indian gut, used for brushes and fishing-lines, from its fibrous leaf-stalks and ramenta.