Explanation of Plates

[Plate 43.] Thrincoma alta, top of type specimen (no. 848).

[Plate 44.]. Thrincoma alta, part of leaf and seeds, natural size.

[Plate 45.]. Thrinax Ponceana, type (no. 1005).

[Plate 46.]. Acrista monticola, type (no. 761) collected near Adjuntas.

[Plate 47.]. Fig. 1, Aeria attenuata. Fig. 2, Cocops rivalis (left) and Roystonea Borinquena (right).

[Plate 48.]. Curima colophylla, apex of flower-cluster and terminal leaf-division, natural size. From type specimen (no. 878).

Pl. 43.
THRINCOMA ALTA
HELIOTYPE CO., BOSTON.

Pl. 44.
THRINCOMA ALTA
HELIOTYPE CO., BOSTON.

Pl. 45.
THRINAX PONCEANA
HELIOTYPE CO., BOSTON.

Pl. 46.
ACRISTA MONTICOLA
HELIOTYPE CO., BOSTON.

Pl. 47.
AERIA ATTENUATA COCOPS RIVALIS

Pl. 48.
CURIMA COLOPHYLLA
HELIOTYPE CO., BOSTON.

[1]. This spelling and the adjective use of the name in this form are editorial corrections.

[2]. Of numerous insects distinctive of the more southern palmetto the most conspicuous is a longicorn beetle, Agallissus chamaeropis Horn, the larvae of which bore in the leaf-bases. The more common Inodes is inhabited by the allied genus Zagymnus, though another species of Agallissus is reported from Texas, where the native Inodes is of the smooth-trunked type.

[3].

Inodes vestita sp. nov. Trunk about 45 cm. thick at base, columnar or tapering upward; surface rimose, the chinks commonly 5 mm. wide and 20 mm. apart. Leaf-bases torn into very numerous, fine, hair-like, light reddish-brown fibers, a few much coarser than the others and measuring from .6 to 1 mm. in diameter. The epidermis separates into delicate membranous shreds, the surface of which is delicately pitted and sparsely beset with brownish hairy-margined peltate scales. Petiole 10 cm. or upward in width below near where it begins to split, 4.5 cm. wide at base of ligule; 3 m. long, concave above; blade 2.13 m. long, 2.50 m. wide, composed of about 60 segments, the apical united more than two-thirds their length, the basal for less than one-third; apical segments 4.5 cm. wide, deeply divided above, a long fiber terminating both the longer and the shorter ribs.

As shown by the rimose bark this species affords a rather extreme instance of the gradual enlargement of the trunk at a distance from the growing point. Numerous leaf-bases remain attached to the trunk in the greenhouse as they would not do in nature, since they are torn loose except for a few fibers at the extreme sides.

[4]. Dr. Rose also kindly permits the use of the following field notes and measurements showing that Inodes Rosei is also a taller and more slender tree than I. Uresana.

“Trees 6–12 or sometimes even 18 meters high, the long slender naked trunk 15–20 cm. in diameter, crowned with a large cluster of leaves; petioles 60 cm. or more long, flat on the face, pubescent, but becoming glabrate; blade pale green, 8 cm. or more in width, strongly keeled, more or less clothed beneath with brown scales on the large veins; segments cleft to below the middle, 25 mm. or less wide; inflorescence in large branching panicles 60 cm. or more long; fruit spherical, 18 mm. in diameter, blackish or dark blue when mature.”

“A very common tree east of Rosario towards Mazatlan, also extending all the way from Rosario to Acaponeta; especially common on the low hills, and east of Rosario toward the mountains. This species is of considerable economic importance, the trunks being used in building fences, corrals and huts, while the leaves appear as thatch on a majority of the houses of this region.”

[5]. Hist. Nat. Palmarum 2: 29.

[6]. Roemer and Schultes treated Martinezia as a synonym of Oreodoxa.

[7]. That the fruits are small and are ripened at one season, as stated in the key, was apparent from the size of the seedlings and from other circumstances which accorded with the testimony of the man whose house stood within a few rods of the largest tree.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter.