Gen. Char. Spathe monophyllous, cucullate, large. Spadix shorter than the spathe, simple, clubbed at the naked end; at the base are the female flowers, and in the middle the male.
Spec. Char. Stem arboraceous, leaves sagittate, about one foot long, petioles of two feet.
Nat. Char. Stem from 6 to 8 feet long, two to three inches in diameter, straight, cylindrical, of an ashy-green colour, marked with scars of the fallen leaves; the substance spongy, juicy, soft; and in this substance are numerous longitudinal fibres, of the thickness of the hairs of horses’ tails, long.
Branches are uncommon.
Leaves are rather more than one foot long and of the same breadth at the base, sagittate, simple, coriaceous. Petioles, amplexicaul, two feet long, channelled from the base to the middle, where the channel ends in an appendix of 23 inches, the remainder is cylindrical.
Flowers, axillary, solitary. Calyx a spathe longer than the spadix. The spadix is almost one foot long. Stamina numerous. Pericarp, many berries at the base of the spadix.
The plant is to be found in Pernambuco, and it grows so plentifully in marshes that many are covered with it.
The substance of the stem of the plant is spongy, and full of an acid juice which acts upon metals; some of the peasants use this in cleaning their knives, firelocks, &c. This is the only use to which the plant has, as yet, been applied; but from the experiments which I have made upon it, I am persuaded that it may be rendered serviceable in the manufacture of cordage of great strength.
As the fibres are placed in the pulp longitudinally, and are slightly fixed to it, the operations of beating and washing will separate them entirely. I have not made any experiments as to the durability of the cordage.
Tucum. This is the name which is given to a species of palm tree, but I have not yet been able to acquaint myself with what genus it belongs to. Piso speaks of it, giving a bad print of it and a worse description. Manoel Ferreira da Camara in his Descrip. fisica da Comarca dos Ilheos, exaggerates the utility of the fibre of the plant. I tried to obtain the fibre from the leaves in a dry state, or, as the peasants term it, suado (sweated.) I held with the left hand the point of the leaf, and with the right rather lower down, I doubled it as if I was going to break it, at the same time pulling it. After it was broken, there remained in my left hand some fibres, which had been loosened from the inner surface of the leaf. I soon saw that this would not do, for one person would not be able to extract more than one eighth of a lb. of fibre in the course of the day; therefore I had recourse to maceration, but this did not succeed, for at the close of eight days I found that both the leaves and the fibre had rotted. Other species of palms grow in great numbers, forming groves of many leagues, such as the Carnâùba, the palmeira, properly so called, the uricuri, and the catolé, &c. but the tucum and another kind called Maiarà grow in the shade of the woods, where they are much scattered, each tree being at some distance from the other; the tucum has few leaves; it is a thin palm tree of 5 to 6 inches in diameter and of 12 to 16 feet in length.