Patriela Murphy, Age 11, Of Staten Island., N.Y.., for her question:.

What is the carnauba tree?

We have intelligence to help us cope with the hardships of nature. We can build. Houses to keep out the cold, and we can work to provide ourselves with fbod. The plant world must take the hardships of nature as they come. The carnauba just

Happens to be able to thrive where the conditions are too severe for other sizable trees. Its botanical name is copernicia cerifera, but the brazilians call it carnauba, the wax palm. Most plants produce a certain amount of wax to shield their leaves from the drying air. Some produce enough to make it worth our while to gather this plant wax. But no plant can produce wax to compare with that of the carnauba, either in quantity or in quality.

Early naturalists called the carnauba the tree of life.. Because it can grow in a climate where other trees find life impossible. Its native home is northern brazil, where the fierce winds blow too hot and dry for comfort. There is little or no moisture in the air and little enough on the rocky ground. The carnauba lives alone in this region of bleak soil swept by hot and arid winds.

It is a tall and kingly palm with a crown of huge fan shaped leaves. It produces a coating of wax to protect its large leaves from the unfriendly winds. The coating of wax is always heavy. But the waxy shield is thickest when the season is hottest and when the lashing winds blow hardest. And the quality of the carnauba wax surpasses that of any other plant.

You have only to count the waxed surfaces in your home to see that wax plays a big part in modern living. Wax is also used in the manufacturer of such widely ¬different items as phonograph records and carbon paper, matches and blackboard chalk. Many of these industrial waxes are made by the plant world., and the best plant wax comes from the carnauba palm,

Brazilians are trying to cultivate the slow growing palm in plantations. But wild trees still provide most of the worlds carnauba wax. Two cuttings are made during the dry season.. And the law allows only 10 to 20 leaves to be taken from each tree. The huge glossy leaves are shredded and dried in the sun. But the leaf fiber dies, the wary coating falls off as a whitish powder. Lumps of this hard and durable carnauba wax are shipped abroad, mostly to the United States.

Rise oarnauba wax retains its hard, shiny surface even when the temperature soars to 150 degrees. Sometimes it is mixed with less perfect waxes to improve them, for it makes them harder and less likely to melt. It is present in most of our self polishing floor waxes. When mixed with the right ingredients, carnauba wax dries fast and hardens with its own glossy lustre.