Besides this species which is mentioned by Martius as occurring at Pará, my friend Mr. Spruce ascertained that another closely allied palm, the Mauritia vinifera, also occurs there. On the Upper Amazon and Rio Negro a palm is found supposed to be the M. flexuosa, but it is not so lofty a tree, which may perhaps be accounted for by its growing on annually instead of diurnally flooded lands. It is believed to be the same species which Humboldt observed on the Serra Duida. The Itá palm growing on the delta of the Orinoco is also thought to be the same species. On the river Uaupes, a branch of the Upper Rio Negro, I observed an allied species called by the natives “Caraná assu.” The stem was smooth and much more slender and waving, and the leaves much smaller.
Plants of the Mauritia flexuosa are growing in the Palm House at Kew.
On Plate XVII. a single leaf is represented, showing the flabellate form produced by abbreviation of the midrib.
Plate II. fig. 2. is a fruit of the natural size.
Pl. XVIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA CARANA. Ht. 40 Ft.
PLATE XVIII.
Mauritia carana, n. sp.
Caraná, Lingoa Geral.
This is a large smooth-stemmed species allied to M. flexuosa, but quite distinct and hitherto undescribed. The stem is about a foot in diameter and from twenty to forty feet high, smooth and obscurely ringed. The leaves are very similar to those of the Mirití, but the leaflets are not so deeply divided, being united together at the base for one-third of their entire length, and much more drooping at the tips. The petioles are very large, straight and cylindrical; their dilated bases are persistent for a considerable distance down the stem, and their margins give out a quantity of fibres which clothe it as in the Leopoldinia piassaba, though rather less densely.
The spadices grow from among the leaves and are somewhat more erect and much smaller than in the Mirití, and the fruits are less abundant, smaller and slightly ovate.