The type of this genus, Bactris minor Jacquin, described from the vicinity of Carthagena, Colombia, is a small spiny palm with creeping rootstocks. The upright trunks are about an inch thick and twelve feet high, with long spiny internodes. The fruits are fleshy, purple, and about the size of a cherry. Several species of Bactris are known from the West Indies though the generic name has doubtless been applied rather loosely to all the small spiny cocoid palms.
The two following species of Bactris from Puerto Rico described by Martius several decades ago seem not to have been secured by recent collectors unless it be true, as suggested below, that one of them, the simple-leaved B. acanthophylla applies to a young Curima. Of B. Pavoniana the narrowly grass-like leaf-divisions would be sufficiently characteristic to separate it at once from all other palms known from Puerto Rico.
Bactris acanthophylla Martius, Palm. Orbign. 67
“Trunk low, spiny; frond simple, the petiole spiny; blade lanceolate in young plants, oblong in the adult, cuneate at the base and bifid at apex, the margin unequally erose, unarmed; rachis and primary veins spiny on both sides; spines bristle-like, narrowed at base, those of the petiole black, those of the blades fuscous.”
“In the western part of the island of Puerto Rico, near the village of Yrurena, in swampy places on the margins of aboriginal forests at an altitude of 400 feet; collected by Wylder, 1827.” (Martius Hist. Palm. 3: 281.)
A specimen to which the above diagnosis would not be inapplicable was collected by Sintenis in the mountain forests near Maricao (no. 484). It was distributed from Berlin as a Martinezia, together with two other very young plants and a seed to which one of these was attached.
The seed evidently did not come from a cocoid palm but together with the young seedlings may belong to Acrista. The large spiny plant is probably a young specimen of Curima, and should these suggestions prove to be correct the specific name acanthophylla must be transferred to this genus though whether it will replace colophylla or not is not to be determined until it can be ascertained that the Maricao species is the same as that here described from Bayamon.
Bactris Pavoniana Martius, Palm. Orbign. 70
“Frond pinnate, rachis with rather long spines and black bristles: linear acuminate, about equally distant, the terminal united, setose-ciliate, glaucous below and with a sparse whitish down.”
“Puerto Rico; Pavon.” (Martius, Hist. Pal. 3: 282.)