In Guatemala there are two families of plants,—Palm and Orchid,—presenting numerous species and of attractive and beautiful appearance, at the same time by no means devoid of commercial importance.

Attalea Cohune.

Chief among palms stands the cohune (Attalea cohune), known also as manàca and corozo. When young, the palm has no stem, its enormous leaves rising from the ground more than thirty feet. The rhachis, or midrib, of the pinnate fronds is of a rich red color, and larger round than a man’s wrist, the distinct, conduplicate divisions being long and broad. Mr. Morris estimates a leaf he saw in British Honduras at sixty feet in length and eight feet in breadth. I have never seen one more than forty feet long and five wide; but this is not an uncommon size of the manàca as it is cut for thatching, one leaf extending across the roof. After remaining some years in the manàca state, the stem begins to elongate, and as it rises, the leaves become smaller, as is the case with the coconut and other palms so far as known. The leaf-stems are persistent, giving the tree a rough, untidy look, but doubtless having a purpose to fulfil in the economy of Nature. This palm is now known as corozo, and begins to fruit. The male inflorescence is an immense mass of more than thirty thousand staminate flowers in a compound raceme between four and five feet long; these have a heavy, not disagreeable odor, and attract a great many bees and wasps, so that on one occasion the mozo who climbed the stem and cut for me a fine specimen was badly stung. These insects were so persistent after a great deal of shaking that the camera was used as quickly as possible, specimens were saved, and the spadix was, with the too-attractive flowers, thrown into the river. The pollen, which under the microscope shows a form exactly like a baker’s roll, is in such abundance from the four hundred and fifty thousand stamens that it would fill a pint measure. The spathe, or cover of the inflorescence, looks like leather, is deeply furrowed on the outside, and would make a commodious bath-tub for a child. The fertile spadix has shorter branches, with the rather large flowers succeeded by from five to ten nuts, the whole bunch, which is about five feet long and weighs more than a hundred pounds, bearing from eight hundred to a thousand nuts. These nuts are two and a half inches long, and covered with a fibrous husk and so thick a shell that the valuable kernel cannot be extracted in quantity without powerful and expensive machinery. Like the coconut, the fruit is normally three-celled. But as in that palm two of the cells give up the struggle for existence in early life, so in the cohune; and I have never, in the scores of nuts opened, found more than one cell. Professor Watson has noticed two cells in several specimens, but never three. In the illustration of this palm the bunch of nearly ripe nuts is clearly shown, and in the diagram of flowers and fruit the fibrous husks and the abortive cells may be seen. The natives crush the ripe nuts between stones, and after pounding the rather small kernel in a mahogany mortar, boil the resulting cake until the oil floats; this is skimmed off and boiled again, to drive out the water. The average yield is a quart of oil from a hundred nuts. The oil is said to be superior to coconut-oil, a pint of it giving as much light, or rather burning as long, as a quart of the latter.[51] It is not probable that the manufacture will pay in the presence of the more tractable coconut. As the cohune grows older, the hitherto persistent leaf-stems drop, the scars disappear, and the smooth stem rises thirty to fifty feet clear to the crown of leaves at the summit.

CHOCUN PALMS.

The pimento-palm has a small cinnamon-colored stem much used for house building, as is also the poknoboy (Bactris balanoidea). The warree cohune (Bactris cohune), armed with spines, bears an edible nut much easier to crack than the larger fruit of the attalea. The cabbage-palm (Oreodoxa oleracea) is common in the upper valleys, and the base of the leaf is a very poor cabbage, nor is it eaten to any extent. In the forests the pacaya (Euterpe edulis) is a slender tree, the unexpanded flower-buds being the edible part; and these are on sale in the market-places tied in neat and attractive bundles. In taste it is rather insipid. On the ridges the Acrocomia sclerocarpa flourishes; its stem is, like the warree cohune, armed with formidable spines, which serve as pins, needles, and awls. The Acrocomia vinifera also is common in the valley of the Motagua. Along the river-banks the Desmoncus, a climbing palm, is very common and very troublesome to the explorer; but it shows such a curious adaptation of parts to special ends that its bad qualities may be overlooked by the naturalist. It is generally understood that in the foliage of palms the palmate form is the earlier, and that the growth or development of the midrib results in a pinnate or feather form. This is seen to be the case in the coco-palm, where the first leaves are palmate or fan-shaped; but when the palm is a few months old it puts off these childish garments and dons the toga virilis in the pinnate form. In the desmoncus the development does not stop with the mere lengthening of the midrib, but transforms the leaflets at the end into claws to aid the limp stem to climb into sunlight. Here is a leaf-tip to show how this is done; the ribs of the leaflets, instead of expanding into thin blades, have thickened and bent backward to serve as the barbs of an arrow and allow motion in one direction only. The leaf can push the stiffly bent fingers through the thick foliage, where they stick fast and hold up the stem. The rattan-palm (Calamus rotang) of the East Indies climbs over the trees in a similar way. The Guatemalan climber bears a small cluster of spiny but edible nuts. The graceful little Chamaedoreas may be found in flower or fruit at almost any season of the year, and their slender stems make good walking-sticks. The confra (Manicaria Plukenetii), so useful for thatching, grows only near the sea, usually in clumps of five or more. The nut is globular when one-celled, and about two inches in diameter. The coco (Cocos nucifera) is too well known to need description, though we shall consider the commercial importance of the nuts presently. Of the other fifty or more species of palms few have been identified, and their local names have no meaning for us.

Leaf-tip of Climbing Palm.