A spathe is represented on the Plate and a dead stem from which the leaves have entirely fallen.
Plate II. fig. 3, a fruit of Manicaria saccifera of the natural size.
Genus Desmoncus, Martius.
Male flowers on the upper parts of the branches of the spadix, females on the lower. Spathe fusiform, woody, at length deciduous. Male flowers with six stamens and linear acute anthers. Female flowers with a short style and three stigmas and six small scaly rudiments of stamens.
Stems slender, flexible, climbing over shrubs or trees. Leaves alternate, pinnate, much sheathing, with long hooked spines in the place of the three or four terminal pair of leaflets. The spadices are axillary and simply branched, the spathes double, fusiform or ventricose, and the fruits are small, round, and generally red. The stems and leaves are more or less prickly.
Fourteen species of these curious Palms are found in various parts of South America, principally in the low lands, as they are not known at a greater height than 2000 feet above the level of the sea. They differ remarkably from all other American palms in their long climbing stems, in which they resemble the Calami or Canes so abundant in the East Indies.
Pl. XXVII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
DESMONCUS MACROACANTHUS. Ht. 50 Ft.
PLATE XXVII.
Desmoncus macroacanthus, Martius.
Jacitára, Lingoa Geral.