Development of Nipa Palm Tart
Introduction
The Nipa palm has a short, mainly underground, horizontal trunk (from above ground it appears to have no trunk at all) and very large, erect leaves up to 9 meters (30 feet) tall. The leaves are divided into leaflets. A flowering head forms on a short erect stern that rises among the palm leaves. The flowers are globular shape with catkin-like red or yellow flowers on the lower branches. The flowers yield a woody nut arranged in a cluster. This fruiting (seed) head is dark brown and may be 30 centimeters (12 inches) in diameter. The ripe nuts separate from the cluster and float away.

The nipa palm is one of the most important economic Philippine crops. It differs from most palm in the lack of an upright stem, trunkless, developing inflorescences at 1 meter height. The leaves are commonly use for thatching. Leaflets are used for making hats, baskets, mats, raincoats, wrappings for suman. The midribs are used for making brooms; the petioles for fuel.
Nipa is a monoecious palm, with stout, subterranean, trunkless and thornless rootstock. Leaves are at the ends of the rootstocks, large, rosette and compound, 5 to 10 meters long, arising from the stout underground stem (rhizome). Leaflets are numerous, rigid, lanceolate, up to 1 meter long, 2 to 7 cm centimeters wide. Male inflorescence is brown, erect, up to 1 meter high. Female inflorescence is stout, 1 meter high or less. Fruit is globose, nodding, up to 30 centimeters in diameter. Carpels are numerous, dark-brown, striate, smooth, 10 to 14 centimeters long, compressed, obovate. Seeds are hard, white, and as large as a hen's egg. Fermented nipa sap contains high amount of ethanol, together with higher alcohols, esters, diacetyl, and acetoin.Nipa is a source of alcohol, sugar and vinegar.The fermented juice, tuba, is extensively used as beverage. Decoction of fresh leaves are used for indolent ulcers.In Malaya, the juice of young shoots, with coconut milk, used as a drink for treating herpes, Ash of roots and leaves used for headaches and toothaches, Fresh leaves, in cataplasm or lotion form, used for treatment of ulcers, The fermented sap diluted with water used as eyewash in eyelid and conjunctival inflammations. In Bangladesh, it is used as a tonic and stimulant for debility.