Palm trees of the Amazon and their uses

Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Ford & West lith. London.
ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.
WITH FORTY-EIGHT PLATES.
LONDON:
JOHN VAN VOORST, 1 PATERNOSTER ROW.
1853.
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
The materials for this work were collected during my travels on the Amazon and its tributaries from 1848 to 1852. Though principally occupied with the varied and interesting animal productions of the country, I yet found time to examine and admire the wonders of vegetable life which everywhere abounded. In the vast forests of the Amazon valley, tropical vegetation is to be seen in all its luxuriance. Huge trees with buttressed stems, tangled climbers of fantastic forms, and strange parasitical plants everywhere meet the admiring gaze of the naturalist fresh from the meadows and heaths of Europe. Everywhere too rise the graceful Palms, true denizens of the tropics, of which they are the most striking and characteristic feature. In the districts which I visited they were everywhere abundant, and I soon became interested in them, from their great variety and beauty of form and the many uses to which they are applied. I first endeavoured to familiarize myself with the aspect of each species and to learn to know it by its native name; but even this was not a very easy matter, for I was often unable to see any difference between trees which the Indians assured me were quite distinct, and had widely different properties and uses. More close examination, however, convinced me that external characters did exist by which every species could be separated from those most nearly allied to it, and I was soon pleased to find that I could distinguish one palm from another, though barely visible above the surrounding forest, almost as certainly as the natives themselves. I then endeavoured to define the peculiarities of form or structure which gave to each its individual character, and made accurate sketches and descriptions to impress them upon my memory. These peculiarities are often very slight, though permanent:—in the roots, the extent to which they appear above the ground;—in the stem, the thickness, which in each species varies within very definite limits,—the swelling of the base, the middle or the summit,—its generally erect or curving position,—the nature of the rings with which it is marked,—the number, direction and form of the spines or tubercles with which it is armed;—in the leaves, the erect or drooping position, the size and form of the leaflets, the angles which they form with the midrib, and the proportionate size of the terminal pair, are all important characters. The fruit spike or spadix is either erect or drooping, either simple, forked, or many-branched; and the fruits in closely allied species vary in size, in shape, and in colour, as well as in the bloom, down, hairs or tubercles with which they are clothed.