A gigantic palm. When the sheath of the flower bursts it makes a report like that of a cannon.
“They burst, like Zeilan’s giant palm,
Whose buds fly open with a sound
That shakes the pigmy forest round.”
Moore: Fire Worshippers.
Zeilau is Portuguese for Ceylon.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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