Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Ford & West lith. London.

PALM TREES OF THE AMAZON
AND THEIR USES.

BY

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.

WITH FORTY-EIGHT PLATES.

LONDON:

JOHN VAN VOORST, 1 PATERNOSTER ROW.

1853.

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,

RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.

PREFACE.

The materials for this work were collected during my travels on the Amazon and its tributaries from 1848 to 1852. Though principally occupied with the varied and interesting animal productions of the country, I yet found time to examine and admire the wonders of vegetable life which everywhere abounded. In the vast forests of the Amazon valley, tropical vegetation is to be seen in all its luxuriance. Huge trees with buttressed stems, tangled climbers of fantastic forms, and strange parasitical plants everywhere meet the admiring gaze of the naturalist fresh from the meadows and heaths of Europe. Everywhere too rise the graceful Palms, true denizens of the tropics, of which they are the most striking and characteristic feature. In the districts which I visited they were everywhere abundant, and I soon became interested in them, from their great variety and beauty of form and the many uses to which they are applied. I first endeavoured to familiarize myself with the aspect of each species and to learn to know it by its native name; but even this was not a very easy matter, for I was often unable to see any difference between trees which the Indians assured me were quite distinct, and had widely different properties and uses. More close examination, however, convinced me that external characters did exist by which every species could be separated from those most nearly allied to it, and I was soon pleased to find that I could distinguish one palm from another, though barely visible above the surrounding forest, almost as certainly as the natives themselves. I then endeavoured to define the peculiarities of form or structure which gave to each its individual character, and made accurate sketches and descriptions to impress them upon my memory. These peculiarities are often very slight, though permanent:—in the roots, the extent to which they appear above the ground;—in the stem, the thickness, which in each species varies within very definite limits,—the swelling of the base, the middle or the summit,—its generally erect or curving position,—the nature of the rings with which it is marked,—the number, direction and form of the spines or tubercles with which it is armed;—in the leaves, the erect or drooping position, the size and form of the leaflets, the angles which they form with the midrib, and the proportionate size of the terminal pair, are all important characters. The fruit spike or spadix is either erect or drooping, either simple, forked, or many-branched; and the fruits in closely allied species vary in size, in shape, and in colour, as well as in the bloom, down, hairs or tubercles with which they are clothed.

In this little work careful engravings from my original drawings are given, with a general description of each species, and a history from personal observation of the various uses to which it is applied, and of any other interesting particulars connected with it. Several of the species here figured are new, and among them is the Palm which produces the “piassába,” the coarse fibrous material of which brooms for street sweeping are now generally made.

For the determination of the genera and species, and for that part of the Introduction relating to the botanical characters and geographical distribution of Palms, I am indebted to the magnificent work of Dr. Martius. To the botanist I trust my little book may be of some use, in giving accurate figures of many entire plants, of which he is only acquainted with small portions, and in supplying an account of the uses to which they are applied in the distant regions where they grow. And to the general reader I hope it may not be uninteresting, as exhibiting a glimpse of a wild and rude people in the lowest state of civilization, whose existence is intimately connected with the products of the surrounding forests, among which the plants under consideration hold so prominent a place; and of these it is hoped the accompanying Plates will give a more accurate idea than the stereotyped figures which often represent the “feathery palm trees” in our popular works.

Some of the fruits of which I had no drawings, have been figured from specimens in the Museum at Kew collected by Mr. R. Spruce, who is still investigating the Botany of the Amazon valley.

London, October 1853.

LIST OF PLATES.

Pl. II. PALM FRUITS
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
1. Raphia tædigera.
2. Mauritia flexuosa.
3. Manicaria saccifera.
4. Lepidocaryum tenue.
5. Astrocaryum tucuma.
6. Leopoldinia pulchra.

Pl. III. PALM FRUITS.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West. Imp.
1. Attalea spectabilis.
2. Maximiliana regia.
3. Spathe of Maregia.
4. Guilielma speciosa.
5. Iriartea exorhiza.

PALM TREES OF THE AMAZON

AND THEIR USES.

INTRODUCTION.

Palms are endogenous or ingrowing plants, belonging to the same great division of the Vegetable Kingdom as the Grasses, Bamboos, Lilies and Pineapples, and not to that which contains all our English forest trees. They are perennial, not annual like most of the above-named plants, and probably reach a great age. Their stems are simple or very rarely forked, slender, erect, and cylindrical, not tapering as in most other trees; they are hardest on the outside, and are marked more or less distinctly with scars or rings, marking the situation of the fallen leaves.

The leaves are generally terminal, forming a bunch or head at the summit of the tree; they are of very large size, have long petioles or footstalks, and are alternately placed on the stem. In shape they are pinnate or flabellate, or rarely simple, sheathing at the base, without stipules; and they have a plicate vernation, or are folded up lengthways before they open. The margins of the sheathing bases of the leaf-stalks are often fibrous, and give out a variety of singular processes.

The flowers are numerous, small, symmetrical, uncoloured, or obscurely so, six-parted, and hermaphrodite or polygamous. They are produced in a spadix from the axils of the leaves, and are generally enclosed in a spathe or sheath. The ovary or seed-vessel is three-celled or three-lobed, but the fruit is generally one-seeded from abortion, and the seed is large and albuminous with a fibrous or fleshy covering.

Palms are almost exclusively tropical plants, very few species being found in the temperate zone, and those only in the warmer parts of it, while the nearer we approach the equator the more numerous they become both in species and individuals. Dr. Martius, a Prussian botanist and traveller in South America, has published a magnificent work in three folio volumes, entirely devoted to the Botanical history of this family of plants. He divides the portion of the earth which produces palms into five regions, namely,—

The North Palm Zone, extending from the northern limit of Palms to the tropic of Cancer.

The transition North Palm Zone, from the tropic of Cancer to 10° north latitude.

The Chief Palm Zone, from 10° north to 10° south latitude.

The transition South Palm Zone, from 10° south latitude to the tropic of Capricorn, and

The South Palm Zone, from the tropic of Capricorn to the southern limit of the family.

The Northern limit of Palms is, in Europe 43° of latitude, in Asia 34°, and in America 34°.

The Southern limit is 34° in Africa, 38° in New Zealand, and 36° in South America.

To the north of the tropic of Cancer there are 43 species of Palms known, and to the south of the tropic of Capricorn only 13, while as we advance from either side towards the equator the number increases, until in the Chief Zone, between 10° north and 10° south latitude, there are more than 300 species (see Frontispiece Map).

In the Old World, the rich islands of the Eastern Archipelago produce the greatest number of Palms; in the New, the great valleys of the Amazon and Orinoco on the main land, are most prolific.

In proportion to its extent, America is the most productive palm country; for while the Old World, including Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Eastern Archipelago, with New Holland and all the Pacific Islands, contain 307 species, the New World or America alone has 275 different kinds.

In the Old World the islands produce more species than the continents, the former containing 194, while the latter have only 113.

In the New World, however, the reverse is the case, the continent there containing 234, while the islands possess only 42 kinds of Palms.

The total number of Palms at present known is less than 600. Dr. Martius thinks that the probable number existing on the earth may be from 1000 to 1200; though, as similar calculations have hitherto almost invariably been proved, as our knowledge increased, to be far below the truth, it is not unlikely that a few years may render double this number a more probable estimate.

Palms present to our view the most graceful and picturesque, as well as some of the most majestic forms in the vegetable kingdom. Though many of them have a sameness of aspect, yet there is a sufficient contrast and variety of forms to render them interesting objects in the landscape. The stems in some species do not appear above the ground, in others they rise to the height of 200 feet; some resemble reeds and are no thicker than a goose quill, others swell out to the bulk of a hogshead. There are climbing palms too, which trail their long flexible stems over trees and shrubs, or hang in tangled festoons between them.

The trunks of some are almost perfectly smooth, others rough with concentric rings, or clothed with a woven or hairy fibrous covering, which binds together the sheathing bases of the fallen leaves. Many are thickly beset with cylindrical or flat spines, often 8 or 10 inches long and as sharp as a needle; and the fallen leaves and stems of these offer a serious obstacle to the traveller who attempts to penetrate the tropical forests.

The leaves are large and often gigantic, surpassing those of any other family of plants. In some species they are 50 feet long and 8 wide; these are pinnate or composed of numerous long narrow leaflets placed at right angles to the midrib, but in others the leaves are entire and undivided, and yet are 30 feet or more in length and 4 or 5 in width. But the most remarkable form of leaf is the fan-shaped, which characterizes a considerable number of species, and gives them such a completely different aspect, as to render it, to ordinary observers, the most palpable feature dividing the whole family into two distinct groups. The Palms having fan-shaped leaves are, however, comparatively few, being only 91 out of 582 known species.

The flowers are small and inconspicuous, generally of a white, pale yellow or green colour, but often produced in such dense masses as to have a striking appearance. They sometimes emit a very powerful odour, which attracts swarms of minute insects; and a newly-burst palm spathe may often be discovered by the buzzing cloud of small flies and beetles which hover over it.

The fruits are generally small, when compared with the size of the trees; the common cocoa-nut being one of the largest in the whole family. The kernel of many is too hard to be eaten, and the outer covering is often fibrous or woody; but in others the seeds are covered with a pulpy or farinaceous mass, which in most cases furnishes a grateful and nutritious food.

The purposes to which the different parts of Palms are applied are very various, the fruit, the leaves, and the stem all having many uses in the different species. Some of them produce valuable articles of export to our own and other countries, but they are of far more value to the natives of the districts where they grow, in many cases furnishing the most important necessaries for existence.

The Cocoa-nut is known to us only as an agreeable fruit, and its fibrous husk supplies us with matting, coir ropes, and stuffing for mattresses; but in its native countries it serves a hundred purposes; food and drink and oil are obtained from its fruit, hats and baskets are made of its fibre, huts are covered with its leaves, and its leaf-stalks are applied to a variety of uses. To us the Date is but an agreeable fruit, but to the Arab it is the very staff of life; men and camels almost live upon it, and on the abundance of the date harvest depends the wealth and almost the existence of many desert tribes. It is truly indigenous to those inhospitable wastes of burning sand, which without it would be uninhabitable by man.

A palm tree of Africa, the Æleis guianensis, gives us oil and candles. It inhabits those parts of the country where the slave trade is carried on, and it is thought by persons best acquainted with the subject that the extension of the trade in palm oil will be the most effectual check to that inhuman traffic; so that a palm tree may be the means of spreading the blessings of civilization and humanity among the persecuted negro race.

Sago is another product of a palm, which is of comparatively little importance to us, but in the East supplies the daily food of thousands. In many parts of the Indian Archipelago it forms almost the entire subsistence of the people, taking the place of rice in Asia, corn in Europe, and maize and mandiocca in America, and is worthy to be classed with these the most precious gifts of nature to mankind. Unlike them, however, it is neither seed nor root, but is the wood itself, the pithy centre of the stem, requiring scarcely any preparation to fit it for food; and it is so abundant that a single tree often yields six hundred pounds weight.

The canes used for chair bottoms and various other purposes, are the stems of species of Calamus, slender palms which abound in the East Indian jungles, climbing over other trees and bushes by the help of the long hooked spines with which their leaves are armed. They sometimes reach the enormous length of 600 or even 1000 feet, and as four millions of them are imported into this country annually, a great number of persons must find employment in cutting them.

A variety of species, in all parts of the world, furnish a sugary sap from their stems or unopened spathes, which when partly fermented is the palm wine of Africa and the Toddy of the East Indies; and a similar beverage is procured from the Mauritia vinifera and other species in South America. Indeed, at the mouth of the Orinoco dwell a nation of Indians whose existence depends almost entirely on a species of Palm, supposed to be the Mauritia flexuosa. They build their houses elevated on its trunks, and live principally upon its fruit and sap, with fish from the waters around them.

Among the most singular products of palm trees are the resins and wax produced by some species. The fruits of a species of Calamus of the Eastern Archipelago are covered with a resinous substance of a red colour, which, in common with a similar product from some other trees, is the Dragon’s blood of commerce, and is used as a pigment, for varnish, and in the manufacture of tooth powder. The Ceroxylon andicola, a lofty palm growing in the Andes of Bogotá, produces a resinous wax which is secreted in its stem and used by the inhabitants of the country for making candles and for other purposes. Again, in some of the northern provinces of Brazil is found a palm tree called Carnaúba, the Copernicia cerifera, having the underside of its leaves covered with white wax, which has no admixture of resin, but is as pure as that procured from our hives.

The leaves of palms, however, are applied to the greatest variety of uses; thatch for houses, umbrellas, hats, baskets and cordage in countless varieties are made from them, and every tropical country possesses some species adapted to these varied purposes, which in temperate zones are generally supplied by a very different class of plants. The Chip, or Brazilian-grass hats, so cheap in this country, are made from the leaves of a palm tree which grows in Cuba, whence they are imported for the purpose: the palm is the Chamærops argentea; and in Sicily an allied species, the Chamærops humilis (the only European palm), is applied in a similar manner to form hats, baskets, and a variety of useful articles.

The papyrus of the ancient Egyptians, and the metallic plates on which other nations wrote, were not used in India, but their place was supplied by the leaves of palms, on whose hard and glossy surface the characters of the Pali and Sanscrit languages were inscribed with a metallic point. The leaves of the Corypha taliera are used for this purpose, and when strung together, form the volumes of a Hindu library.

A favourite stimulant too of the Malays is furnished by a palm. The fruit of the Areca catechu is the betelnut, which they chew with lime, and which is their substitute for the opium of the Chinese, the tobacco of Europeans, and the coca of the South Americans.

One of the most recent introductions into our own domestic economy is the fibre of a palm, the Piassaba, which is now generally used for coarse brooms and brushes; and in the valley of the Amazon, of which it is a native, the same material is manufactured into cables, which are cheap and very durable in the water.

We have now glanced at a few of the most important uses to which Palms are applied, but in order to be able to appreciate how much the native tribes of the countries where they most abound are dependent on this noble family of plants, and how they take part in some form or other in almost every action of the Indian’s life, we must enter into his hut and inquire into the origin and structure of the various articles we shall see around us.

Suppose then we visit an Indian cottage on the banks of the Rio Negro, a great tributary of the river Amazon in South America. The main supports of the building are trunks of some forest tree of heavy and durable wood, but the light rafters overhead are formed by the straight cylindrical and uniform stems of the Jará palm. The roof is thatched with large triangular leaves, neatly arranged in regular alternate rows, and bound to the rafters with sipós or forest creepers; the leaves are those of the Caraná palm. The door of the house is a framework of thin hard strips of wood neatly thatched over; it is made of the split stems of the Pashiúba palm. In one corner stands a heavy harpoon for catching the cow-fish; it is formed of the black wood of the Pashiúba barriguda. By its side is a blowpipe ten or twelve feet long, and a little quiver full of small poisoned arrows hangs up near it; with these the Indian procures birds for food, or for their gay feathers, or even brings down the wild hog or the tapir, and it is from the stem and spines of two species of Palms that they are made. His great bassoon-like musical instruments are made of palm stems; the cloth in which he wraps his most valued feather ornaments is a fibrous palm spathe, and the rude chest in which he keeps his treasures is woven from palm leaves. His hammock, his bow-string and his fishing-line are from the fibres of leaves which he obtains from different palm trees, according to the qualities he requires in them,—the hammock from the Mirití, and the bow-string and fishing-line from the Tucúm. The comb which he wears on his head is ingeniously constructed of the hard bark of a palm, and he makes fish hooks of the spines, or uses them to puncture on his skin the peculiar markings of his tribe. His children are eating the agreeable red and yellow fruit of the Pupunha or peach palm, and from that of the Assaí he has prepared a favourite drink, which he offers you to taste. That carefully suspended gourd contains oil, which he has extracted from the fruit of another species; and that long elastic plaited cylinder used for squeezing dry the mandiocca pulp to make his bread, is made of the bark of one of the singular climbing palms, which alone can resist for a considerable time the action of the poisonous juice. In each of these cases a species is selected better adapted than the rest for the peculiar purpose to which it is applied, and often having several different uses which no other plant can serve as well, so that some little idea may be formed of how important to the South American Indian must be these noble trees, which supply so many daily wants, giving him his house, his food, and his weapons.

To the lover of nature Palms offer a constant source of interest, reminding him that he is amidst the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics, and offering to him the realization of whatever wild and beautiful ideas he has from childhood associated with their name.

In the equatorial regions of South America they are seldom absent. Either delicate species flourishing in the dense shade of the virgin forest; or lofty and massive, standing erect on the river’s banks; or on the hill side raising their leafy crowns on airy stems above the surrounding trees, creating, as Humboldt styles it, “a forest above a forest;” in every situation some are to be met with as representatives of the magnificent and regal family to which they belong.

In the following pages the genera and species are arranged in the order adopted by Dr. Martius in his elaborate work already alluded to.

Natural Order PALMACEÆ.
Genus Leopoldinia, Martius.

This genus is characterized by having flowers containing stamens or pistils only, intermingled on the same spadix, and by not having a spathe. The male flowers have six stamens and no rudiments of a stigma. The female flowers have three sessile stigmas and rudimentary stamens. The spadix is much branched and decomposed.

The species are trees of a moderate size without any spines or tubercles, but remarkable for the netted fibres which spring from the margins of the sheathing petioles, and cover the stem half way down or sometimes even to its base. The leaves are terminal and pinnate, the leaflets spreading out regularly in one plane. There are often three or four spadices on a tree, bearing abundance of small flowers, and ovate compressed fruit, the outer covering of which is fleshy.

Four species are known, and they are all found in the same limited district near the Rio Negro, some extending to the tributaries of the Orinoco near its source, and one being found south of the Amazon nearly opposite the mouth of the Rio Negro. All however grow on the banks or in the immediate vicinity of black-ater streams, which occur more extensively in South America than in any other part of the globe. Two species are described by Martius, one of which is here figured with two others, which are believed to be new. They are not found more than 1000 feet above the level of the sea.

Pl. IV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
LEOPOLDINIA PULCHRA. Ht. 12 Ft.

PLATE IV.
Leopoldinia pulchra, Martius.

Jará, Lingoa Geral.

The Jará or Jará mirí (little Jará) is from ten to fifteen feet high. The stem is cylindrical, erect, and about two inches in diameter. The leaves are very regularly pinnate, about four feet long, with the leaflets slightly drooping and the terminal pair small. The leaf-stalks are slender and the sheathing bases are persistent, giving out from their margins abundance of flat fibrous processes which are curiously netted and interlaced together, clothing the stem with a firm covering often down to the very base. At the lower part this gradually rots and is rubbed away or falls off, leaving the stem bare. The flower-stalks or spadices are numerous, and very large and much branched; and the fruits are about an inch in diameter, oval and flattened, and of a pale greenish yellow colour. The outer covering is firm and fleshy, and has a very bitter taste.

This species is found on the banks of the Rio Negro and some of its tributaries, from its mouth up to its source, and on the black-water tributaries of the Orinoco. It never grows far from the water’s edge, though generally out of reach of the floods in the wet season. It is not known to occur beyond this very limited district.

The stem of this tree being very smooth and cylindrical, and of a convenient length, it is much used for fencing round yards and gardens, and in the city of Barra do Rio Negro is universally employed for such purposes. The want of neatness out of doors, which is quite a characteristic of the Portuguese and Indian settlers on the Amazon, is always apparent in these fences. It is never thought worth while to cut the poles all to one length, but they are set up just as they are brought in from the forest; and the space between two handsome houses in the city may often be seen filled up with a Jará railing of most unpicturesque irregularity.

The bright green and glossy foliage of this tree also renders it suitable for another purpose. On certain saints’ days, little altars and green avenues are made before the principal houses in Barra, the Jará palm being always used to construct them; and its graceful fronds rustling in the evening breeze, fitfully reflecting the light of the wax tapers which burn before the image of the saint, with the blazing torches of the rustic procession, have a very pleasing effect.

The reticulate covering of the stem of this and the next species offers a fine station for the epiphytal Orchideæ to attach themselves, and the Jará palms are accordingly often adorned with their curious and ornamental flowers.

Plate II. figure 6. represents a fruit of this species of the natural size.

Pl. V.
W. Fitch lith.
LEOPOLDINIA MAJOR. Ht. 25 Ft.

PLATE V.
Leopoldinia major, n. sp.

Jará assú, Lingoa Geral.

The Jará assú or “greater Jará” closely resembles the last species, but it is considerably larger. The stem is four inches in diameter and reaches thirty feet in height. It is often much thicker at the bottom than in the upper part, and has a greater proportion of the stem bare. The leaves are very similar, but the spadices are larger, and the fruit is also larger and much more abundant.

This tree occurs plentifully on the lakes and inlets of the upper Rio Negro, but is not found at the mouth of the river like the last species. It grows too at a lower level, being often found with a part of the stem under water.

The Indians collect the fruit in large quantities, and by burning and washing extract a floury substance, which they use as a substitute for salt when they cannot procure that article. They assert positively that the smaller species of Jará will not yield the same product; but perhaps this may be only because the fruit is less abundant, and they do not take the trouble to collect it.

Coarse Portugal salt is used in the Rio Negro, and among the Indians in the upper part of the river serves as a circulating medium, about a pound of it being reckoned equivalent to a day’s work. The supply however is very uncertain, and there are many distant tribes which it scarcely ever reaches; and it is among them that the substitute is manufactured from the fruit of the Jará. It is doubtful, however, whether it contains any true salt, for it is described as being more bitter than saline in taste; yet with this alone to season their fish and cassava the Indians enjoy almost perfect health. Perhaps, therefore, mineral salt may not be such a necessary of life as we are accustomed to consider it.

Pl. VI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
LEOPOLDINIA PIASSABA. Ht. 20 Ft.

PLATE VI.
Leopoldinia piassaba, n. sp.

Piassába, Lingoa Geral. Chíquichíqui, Barré. [An Indian language spoken on the Upper Rio Negro in Venezuela.]

This tree, the “Piassaba” of Brazil and the “Chíquichíqui” of Venezuela, I have little hesitation in referring to the genus Leopoldinia, though I have never seen it in flower or in fruit. The texture and form of the leaves, the peculiar branching of the spadix, and the extraordinary development of the fibres from the margins of the sheathing petioles, show it to be very closely allied to the other species of this genus.

The stem is generally short, but reaches twenty to thirty feet in height, and is much thicker than in either of the preceding species. The leaves are very large and regularly pinnate, with the pinnæ gradually smaller to the end, as in the two former species. The leaflets are rigid, broadest in the middle, and gradually tapering to a fine point, spreading out flat on each side of the midrib, but slightly drooping at the tips. The petioles are slender and smooth. The spadix is large, excessively branched and drooping, and there are often several on the same tree. The marginal processes of the petioles are interlaced as in the two former species, and are produced into long riband-like strips, which afterwards split into fine fibres, and hang down five or six feet, entirely concealing the stem, and giving the tree a most curious and unique appearance. The leaves form an excellent thatch, and are almost universally used in that portion of Venezuela situated on the upper Rio Negro, and the adjacent tributaries of the Orinoco. The fruit is said to resemble that of the Jará in colour, but it is globose and eatable, being used principally to form a thick drink by washing off the outer coating of pulp.

The fibrous or hairy covering of the stem is an extensive article of commerce in the countries in which it grows. It seems to have been used by the Brazilians from a very early period to form cables for the canoes navigating the Amazon. It is well adapted for this purpose, as it is light (the cables made of it not sinking in water) and very durable. It twists readily and firmly into cordage from the fibres being rough-edged, and as it is very abundant, and is procured and manufactured by the Indians, piassaba ropes are much cheaper than any other kind of cordage. The price in the city of Barra in June 1852, was 400 reis or 1s. for 32 lbs. of the fibre, and 800 reis or 2s. for every inch in circumference of a cable sixty fathoms long, which is the standard length they are all made to.

Before the independence of Brazil, the Portuguese government had a factory at the mouth of the Paduarí, one of the tributaries of the Rio Negro, for the purpose of making these cables for the use of the Pará arsenal, and as a government monopoly. Till within these few years the fibre was all manufactured into cordage on the spot, but it is now taken down in long conical bundles for exportation from Pará to England, where it is generally used for street sweeping and house brooms, and will probably soon be applied to many other purposes. It is cut with knives by men, women and children, from the upper part of the younger trees, so as to secure the freshest fibres, the taller trees which have only the old and half-rotten portion within reach, being left untouched. It is said to grow again in five or six years, the fibres being produced at the bases of the new leaves. The trees are much infested by venomous snakes, a species of Craspedocephalus, and the Indians are not unfrequently bitten by them when at work, and sometimes with fatal consequences.

The distribution of this tree is very peculiar. It grows in swampy or partially flooded lands on the banks of black-water rivers. It is first found on the river Padauarí, a tributary of the Rio Negro on its northern side, about 400 miles above Barra, but whose waters are not so black as those of the Rio Negro. The Piassaba is found from near the mouth to more than a hundred miles up, where it ceases. On the banks of the Rio Negro itself not a tree is to be seen. The next river, the Darahá, also contains some. The next two, the Maravihá and Cababurís, are white-water rivers, and have no Piassaba. On the S. bank, though all the rivers are black-water, there is no Piassaba till we reach the Marié, not far below St. Gabriel. Here it is extensively cut for about a hundred miles up, but there is still none immediately at the mouth or on the banks of the Rio Negro. The next rivers, the Curicuríarí, the great river Uaupés, and the Isánna, though all black-water, have none; while further on, in the Xié, it again appears. On entering Venezuela it is found near the banks of the Rio Negro, and is abundant all up to its sources, and in the Témi and Atabápo, black-water tributaries of the Orinoco. This seems to be its northern limit, and I cannot hear of its again appearing in any part of the Amazon or Orinoco or their tributaries. It is thus entirely restricted to a district about 300 miles from N. to S. and an equal distance from E. to W. I am enabled so exactly to mark out its range, from having resided more than two years in various parts of the Rio Negro, among people whose principal occupation consisted in obtaining the fibrous covering of this tree, and from whom no locality for it can have remained undiscovered, assisted as they are by the Indians, whose home is the forest, and who are almost as well acquainted with its trackless depths as we are with the well-beaten roads of our own island.

The fibre imported into this country has been supposed to be produced only by the Attalea funifera, a species not found in the Amazon district. In the London Journal of Botany for 1849, Sir W. Hooker gave some account of the material, and of the tree producing it; stating that he had received the fruit of the tree with the fibre from a mercantile house connected with Brazil, and that the fruit was that of the Attalea funifera. This species is mentioned by Martius as furnishing a fibre used for cordage and other purposes in Southern Brazil, and he states that it is called “piaçaba”; so that the Indian name is applied to two distinct trees producing a similar material in different localities; and the two having been brought to England under the same name and from not very distant ports of the same country, were naturally supposed to be produced by the same tree. The greater part, if not all of the Piassaba now imported, comes, however, from the Rio Negro, where several hundred tons are cut annually and sent to Pará, from which place scarcely a vessel sails for England without its forming a part of her cargo.

Genus Euterpe, Gærtner.

Male and female flowers intermingled on the same spadix, the former more abundant in the upper part of the branches, the latter in the lower. Spathe entire, membranaceous, fusiform and deciduous. Flowers with bracts, male with six stamens and a rudimentary pistil, female with three sessile stigmas. Spadix simply branched, spreading horizontally.

These are very elegant palms; their stems are lofty, slender, smooth and faintly ringed. The leaves are terminal, pinnate, regular, and form a graceful feathery plume. The bases of the petioles are sheathing for a long distance down the stem, forming a thick column three or four feet long, of a green or reddish colour. The spadices, three or four in number, spring from beneath the leaves, and the spathes are very deciduous, falling to the ground as soon as they open. The fruit is small, globose, at first green, then violet or black, and consists of a thin edible pulp covering the hard seed.

Twelve species are known, inhabiting the West Indies, Mexico and South America, and there appear to be three species in the Amazon district, two of which I have figured. Some prefer marshy grounds near the level of the sea, others extend up the mountains to a height of 4000 feet.

Pl. VII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
EUTERPE OLERACEA. Ht. 60 Ft.

PLATE VII.
Euterpe oleracea, Martius.

Assaí, Lingoa Geral.

The Assaí of Pará is a tall and slender tree, from sixty to eighty feet high, and about four inches in diameter. The stem is very smooth, of a pale colour, and generally waving, sometimes very much curved. The leaves are of moderate size, of a pale bright green, regularly pinnate, and with the leaflets much drooping. The column formed by the sheathing bases of the leaves is of an olive colour. The flowers are small, whitish, and very thickly set on the simply branched spadix. There are generally two or three, and sometimes even five or six spadices, growing out horizontally from a little below the leaf-column. The spathe is smooth and membranous, and falls off as the spadix opens. The fruit when ripe is about the size and colour of a sloe. It consists of a hard albuminous seed, with a rather fibrous exterior, and a very thin covering of a firm pulp or flesh.

This species is very abundant in the neighbourhood of Pará, and even in the city itself. It grows in swamps flooded by the high tides,—never on dry land. Its straight cylindrical stem is sometimes used for poles and rafters; but the tree is generally considered too valuable to be cut down for such purposes. A very favourite drink is made from the ripe fruit, and daily vended in the streets of Pará. Indian and negro girls may be constantly seen walking about with small earthen pots on their heads, uttering at intervals a shrill cry of Assaí——í. If you call one of these dusky maidens, she will set down her pot, and you will see it filled with a thick creamy liquid, of a fine plum colour. A pennyworth of this will fill a tumbler, and you may then add a little sugar to your taste, and will find a peculiar nut-flavoured liquid, which you may not perhaps think a great deal of at first; but, if you repeat your experience a few times, you will inevitably become so fond of it as to consider “Assaí” one of the greatest luxuries the place produces. It is generally taken with farinha, the substitute for bread prepared from the mandiocca root, and with or without sugar, according to the taste of the consumer.

During our walks in the suburbs of Pará we had frequently opportunities of seeing the preparation of this favourite beverage. Two or three large bunches of fruit are brought in from the forest. The women of the house seize upon them, shake and strip them into a large earthen vessel, and pour on them warm water, not too hot to bear the hand in. The water soon becomes tinged with purple, and in about an hour the outer pulp has become soft enough to rub off. The water is now most of it poured away, a little cold added, and a damsel, with no sleeves to turn up, plunges both hands into the vessel, and rubs and kneads with great perseverance, adding fresh water as it is required, till the whole of the purple covering has been rubbed off and the greenish stones left bare. The liquid is now poured through a wicker sieve into another vessel, and is then ready for use. The smiling hostess will then fill a calabash, and give you another with farinha to mix to your taste; and nothing will delight her more than your emptying your rustic basin and asking her to refill it.

The inhabitants of Pará are excessively attached to this beverage, and many never pass a day of their lives without it. They are particularly favoured too, in being able to get it at all seasons, for though in most places the trees only bear for a few months once in the year, yet in the neighbourhood of Pará there is so much variety of soil and aspect, that within a day or two’s journey, there is always some ripe Assaí to supply the market. Boys climb up the trees to get it, with a cord round the ankles (as shown on the Plate), and with its own leaves make a neatly interlaced basket to carry it home. From the great island of Marajó, its igaripés[^[1]] and marshes, from the rivers Guamá and Mojú, from the thousand islands in the river, and from the vast palm swamps in the depths of the forest, baskets of the fruit are brought every morning to the city, where half the population look to the Assaí to supply a daily meal, and hundreds are said to make it, with farinha, almost their main subsistence.

[1]. A small stream, literally “path of the canoe.”

The trees of this genus also furnish another article of food. The undeveloped leaves in the centre of the column form a white sweetish mass, which when boiled somewhat resembles artichoke or parsnep, and is a very good and wholesome vegetable. It may also be eaten raw, cut up and dressed as a salad with oil and vinegar. As, however, to obtain it the tree must be destroyed, it is not much used in Pará, except by travellers in the forest who have no particular interest in the preservation of the trees for fruit. The Cabbage Palm of the West Indies is an allied species, and is used for food in the same manner.

Very fine specimens of this tree may be seen in the great Palm House at Kew, where they grow almost as luxuriantly as in their native forests.

In the Plate, the unopened spathe, flower-spadix and fruit are represented, as they are often found, together on the same tree.

Euterpe ——?

On the banks of the Rio Negro there appears to be another species of this genus, closely allied to the Euterpe oleracea, but the stem is thicker and straighter, the whole tree larger, and the leaf-column thicker, and of a clear green colour. It grows on the dry land of the virgin forest, or sometimes within the limits of the winter’s inundations. I unfortunately neglected to examine into its peculiar characters, as until my return to Pará I had considered it identical with the species so common there.

I was also informed that in the island of Marajó there is a species or variety having white fruit, but I had no opportunity of examining it.

Pl. VIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
EUTERPE CATINGA. Ht. 40 Ft.

PLATE VIII.
Euterpe catinga, n. sp.

Assaí de catinga, Lingoa Geral.

This species differs from the last in its slenderer stem and less drooping leaves and leaflets. It grows to forty or fifty feet high. The spadices are fewer and much smaller. The fruit also is smaller, and has more pulpy matter, so that a small quantity of it makes more of the “vinho d’Assaí” (the Assaí wine) than the same quantity of fruit of the larger kind. The column formed by the sheathing bases of the leaves is smaller than in the last species, and always of a red colour. The roots rise considerably above the ground, forming a distinct cone, which is not the case in the E. oleracea. It inhabits the forests on a dry sandy soil, of the Upper Rio Negro. These districts are called Catinga forests by the natives, and have very peculiar vegetable productions, differing almost entirely from those of the lofty virgin forest.

The preparation of the fruit of this species is sweeter and more finely flavoured than that of any other, and is therefore much sought after, but it takes the produce of four or five trees to yield as much as a single spadix of the larger kind will often produce. I found the fruit ripe in the month of April on the river Uaupés, a branch of the Rio Negro above the Falls.

Genus Œnocarpus, Martius.

Male and female flowers on the same spadix, the former most abundant. Spathe double, the interior complete, woody, and deciduous. Flowers without distinct bracts; the male with six stamens and rudiments of a pistil, the female with three sessile stigmas, but with no rudiment of stamens.

These are tall majestic trees with large smooth stems, generally distinctly ringed. The leaves are large, terminal, more or less regularly pinnate, and have the bases expanded and clasping the stem, but not forming a sheathing column as in the last genus. The spadices spring from beneath the leaves and are simply branched; the branches are very lax, hanging down vertically except when forced outwards by the ripening fruit. The spathe is very large, fusiform and woody, and falls off the moment the spadix escapes from it. The fruit is small, nearly globular, and has an edible pulpy covering, like that of the genus Euterpe.

Six species only are known, and all inhabit tropical America, where they prefer dry, slightly elevated lands, none being known to extend more than 1600 feet above the sea.

Pl. IX.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ŒNOCARPUS BACCABA Ht. 50 Ft.

PLATE IX.
Œnocarpus baccába, Martius.

Baccába, Lingoa Geral.

This is a smooth thick-stemmed handsome tree, faintly ringed, and reaching fifty or sixty feet in height. The leaves are large, terminal, and pinnate. The leaflets are long; gradually pointed, and set at equal distances along the midrib. When young, the leaves are flat, the leaflets or pinnæ all standing out in the same plane; but in the full-grown tree the leaflets are in groups of two or three standing out at different angles from the general plane of the leaf, so as to give an irregular mixed appearance to the leaf. The petioles are greatly dilated at the base where they clasp the stem, and have a fibrous margin. The leaves as they die fall clean off from the stem, no part of the base remaining. The spathe is deciduous, being comparatively seldom visible. The fruits are of a violet or black colour when ripe, but are covered with a dense whitish bloom. They are prepared in the same way as the Assaí, but the pulp is of a pinkish cream-colour instead of purple, and the liquid is more oily, and of delicious flavour, somewhat resembling filberts and cream. It is said, however, not to be so wholesome as the Assaí, and in districts where intermittent fevers are prevalent, to bring them on, and to be particularly hurtful to persons recovering from that disease. A very beautiful oil is sometimes extracted from the pulp by pressure; it is perfectly clear, liquid, and inodorous; and serves as a substitute for olive oil, as well as being very good for lamps. The leaves are sometimes used for thatching when none better can be obtained; but owing to the irregularity of the pinnæ before mentioned, they are not much used.

This species inhabits the dry virgin forests of the Rio Negro and Upper Amazon. In the lower parts of that river and in the neighbourhood of Pará it is replaced by another species, the Œnocarpus distichus.

The Œ. baccába is growing at Kew.

One figure on the Plate shows the unopened spathe; the other has spadices with flowers and fruit.

Pl. XI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ŒNOCARPUS BATAWA. Ht. 50 Ft.

PLATES X. and XI.
Œnocarpus batawá, Martius.

Patawá, Lingoa Geral.

This species can hardly be distinguished from the Œnocarpus baccába when young. In the full-grown plant, however, the leaves preserve their regularity, the leaflets spreading out regularly in one plane and having a very beautiful appearance. The stem in old trees is fifty or sixty feet high and quite smooth, but in those growing in the shade of the forest, and in all young trees, the stem is completely hidden by the persistent bases of the decayed and fallen leaves. I have figured a tree in this state (Plate XI.).

The sheathing bases of the petioles give out from their margins numerous long spinous processes of a very singular character. They are from eighteen inches to three feet long, of a black colour, flattish, and generally broken or fibrous at the point. They are much sought after by the Indians, who use them to make arrows for their “gravatánas” or blow-pipes. One of these arrows is here represented with the wicker quiver in which they are carried. They are about fifteen or eighteen inches long, sharply pointed at the end, which is covered with “curarí” poison for three or four inches down, and notched so as to break off in the wound. Near the bottom a little of the soft down of the silk-cotton-tree is twisted round into a smooth spindle-haped mass, and carefully secured with a fibre of a “bromelia.” The cotton just fits easily into the tube, offering a light resisting body for the breath to act upon.

The fruit of this species is very similar to that of the Baccába, and is said to be of even superior flavour.

The Patawá is found in the whole of the Amazon and Rio Negro in the virgin forest, though apparently nowhere very abundant. Specimens are now growing in the Palm House at Kew.

The fruit is represented on Pl. X. of the natural size.

Œnocarpus minor, Martius.
Baccába miri, Lingoa Geral.

This is a small species common on the upper Rio Negro. The stem is not half so thick as in the Œ. baccába, and the leaves are in proportion. The fruit is also very small, but is very fleshy and fine-flavoured, and ripens at a different time of year from the larger kind. It grows in the dry virgin forest. My drawing of this tree was unfortunately lost on my voyage home.

Pl. X.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ŒNOCARPUS BATAWA. Ht. 60 Ft.

Œnocarpus distichus, Martius.

Baccába, of Pará.

This is the species known as the Baccába at Pará, where the Œ. baccába is not found. It is quite distinct from the allied species by the leaves being distichous, or arranged nearly in one plane on each side of the stem, which gives it a very peculiar aspect, unlike any other Palm.

On my return to Pará from the interior, I was suffering so much from ague, as to be unable to go in search of a specimen of this tree to figure as I had intended.

This, like all other species of the genus, grows in dry and rather elevated forest land.

Genus Iriartea, Ruiz et Pavon.

Female flowers few, interspersed among the males, bracteate. Spathe membranous, incomplete. Male flowers with from twelve to fifty stamens and the rudiments of a pistil. Female flowers with three sessile stigmas.

These singular and beautiful Palms have lofty, smooth, cylindrical or ventricose stems, very faintly ringed. The roots grow more or less above ground. The leaves are terminal and pinnate, and the leaflets are somewhat triangular, notched, often twisted or curled, and have radiating nerves. The sheathing bases form a column as in Euterpe. The spadices grow from beneath the leaves and are simply branched and drooping. The spathes vary in number and size; they are membranous, and fall off before the fruit ripens. The fruit is oval, of moderate size, generally of a red or yellow colour, and the pulpy part is bitter and uneatable. The stems of this genus increase in thickness within certain limits, differing from most other palms, which, when the stem is once formed, only increase in height.

Nine species of this genus are known, all natives of South America. Four of them occur in the Amazon district, three in Bolivia, one in Venezuela, and one near Bogotá, reaching a height above the sea of 5000 to 8000 feet.

Pl. XII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
IRIARTEA EXORHIZA. Ht. 60 Ft.

PLATE XII.
Iriartea exorhiza, Martius.

Pashiúba, Lingoa Geral.

This curious and beautiful tree is common in the forests about Pará and on the banks of the Amazon. It reaches fifty or sixty feet in height, with the stem moderately thick and very smooth, there being scarcely any rings or scars left by the fallen leaves.

The leaves are large and pinnate, with the leaflets triangular and very deeply notched, standing out at different angles with the midrib. The leaves curve over gracefully, and the character and aspect of the foliage is very different from that of most other palms. The column formed by the sheathing leaf-stalks is swollen at the base and of a deep green colour.

The spadices are three or four in number, growing rather upwards from the stem below the leaf-column. They are small and simply branched, and bear small oval red fruits about the size of a damson, the outer pulp of which is bitter and only eaten by some birds.

But what most strikes attention in this tree, and renders it so peculiar, is, that the roots are almost entirely above ground. They spring out from the stem, each one at a higher point than the last, and extend diagonally downwards till they approach the ground, when they often divide into many rootlets, each of which secures itself in the soil. As fresh ones spring out from the stem, those below become rotten and die off; and it is not an uncommon thing to see a lofty tree supported entirely by three or four roots, so that a person may walk erect beneath them, or stand with a tree seventy feet high growing immediately over his head.

In the forests where these trees grow, numbers of young plants of every age may be seen, all miniature copies of their parents, except that they seldom possess more than three legs, which gives them a strange and almost ludicrous appearance.

The figure on the opposite page (Plate XIII.) represents accurately the roots of a tree which had been partly blown down in the forest of the Upper Rio Negro. My friend Mr. Spruce informs me that it is a distinct species from that found at Pará, though closely allied to it, and scarcely differing in the character of the roots.

The wood of these trees is very hard on the outside, but soft and pithy within. It splits easily and very straight, and is much used for forming the floors of canoes, the ceilings of houses, shelves, seats, and various other purposes. Perfectly straight laths are more readily made from it than from any other wood, and they are so hard and durable as to serve for fish-weirs, corals for turtles, and for harpoons. The air-roots are covered with tubercular prickles, and are used by some Indians to grate their mandiocca.

This species grows in swamps or marshy ground in the virgin forest, not in the tide-flooded lands on the river banks.

Young plants may be seen in the great Palm House at Kew.

A fruit is represented on Plate III. fig. 5. of the natural size.

Pl. XIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ROOTS OF AN IRIARTEA.

Pl. XIV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
IRIARTEA VENTRICOSA. Ht. 20 Ft.

PLATE XIV.
Iriartea ventricosa, Martius.

Pashiúba barriguda, Brazil.

This is the most majestic tree of the genus. The stem reaches eighty or a hundred feet in height, and besides being rather thicker in proportion than in the last species, offers a remarkable character in being constantly more or less swollen near the middle or towards the top. The trunk is generally cylindrical to a height of forty or fifty feet, where it swells out to double its former diameter or more for ten or fifteen feet further, when it again diminishes and becomes cylindrical for about twenty feet to the summit. It is only when the trees have reached their full height or nearly so that the swelling commences. In a forest where they abound many may be seen of a large size, but quite cylindrical from top to bottom, while others present every degree of swelling from a just perceptible thickening to a most extraordinary enlargement. The column of air-roots in this species is six or eight feet high, forming a compact conical mass, the separate roots being more slender than in the Iriartea exorhiza.

The leaves are very large, with the leaflets broadly triangular and much cut and waved, forming a very elegant and yet massive head of foliage. The leaf-olumn is very thick, much swollen at the base, and of a deep bluish green colour.

The unopened spathes are lunate in shape and curved downwards, and the spadices are small and simply branched.

The wood of this tree is very hard, heavy and black, and is used by the Indians for making harpoons and spears with which they hunt the cow-fish. The swollen part of the stem is sometimes cut down and made into a canoe, when one is required in a hurry; otherwise it is not made use of.

The tree grows on the Upper Amazon and Rio Negro, on hill sides and on the banks of brooks and springs; and the Indians say that wherever it abounds sarsaparilla will be found growing near.

A fruit is represented on the Plate of the natural size.

Pl. XV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
IRIARTEA SETIGERA. Ht. 20 Ft.

PLATE XV.
Iriartea setigera, Martius.

Pashiúba miri, Lingoa Geral.

This small species has the stem from fifteen to twenty feet high, and varying from the thickness of a finger to that of the wrist, which it never exceeds. The stem is smooth and cylindrical, but distinctly ringed. The roots appear only a few inches above the ground. The leaves are pinnate, the leaflets elongate, triangular and cut at the ends. The column is short and cylindrical, and both it and the petioles are covered with short hairs or down. The spadices have long stalks and grow from beneath or from among the leaves; they are rather large and are simply branched. The spathes form sheaths at the bases of the spadices, and are persistent. The fruit is oval, of an orange-red colour, and about the size of the “hip” or wild rose fruit.

These trees grow on the Upper Amazon and Rio Negro in the dry virgin forest, where they occur in small scattered groves.

This species is of great importance to the Indian of the Rio Negro. With its stem he constructs his “gravatána” or blowing tube, which, with the little arrows before described as made from the spines of the Patawá, forms a most valuable weapon, enabling him to bring down monkeys, parrots and curassow birds from their favourite stations on the summits of the loftiest trees of the forest.

When he wishes to make a “gravatána” he searches in the forest till he finds two straight and tall stems of the “Pashiúba miri” of such proportionate thicknesses that one could be contained within the other. When he returns home he takes a long slender rod which he has prepared on purpose, generally made of the hard and elastic wood of the “Pashiúba barriguda,” and with it pushes out the pith from both the stems, and then with a little bunch of the roots of a tree fern, cleans and polishes the inside till the bore becomes as hard and as smooth as polished ebony. He then carefully inserts the slenderer tube within the larger, placing it so that any curve in the one may counteract that in the other. Should it still be not quite correct, he binds it carefully to a post in his house till it is perfectly straight and dry. He then fits a mouth-piece of wood to the smaller end of the tube, so that the arrow may go out freely at the other; and when he wishes to finish his work neatly, winds spirally round it from end to end, the shining bark of a creeper. Near the lower extremity he forms a sight with the large curved cutting tooth of the Paca (Cœlogenus paca), which he fixes on with pitch, and the gravatána is then fit for use.

These tubes are never less than eight and are often ten or twelve feet long, and on looking through a good one, not the slightest irregularity can be detected from one end to the other. The bore is generally not large enough to admit the tip of the little finger, so that the breath more readily fills the whole tube and propels the arrow with great velocity. The vertical direction is that in which the surest aim can be taken, and for which the gravatána is best adapted. When birds are feeding at the top of a lofty tree where the result of a gun-shot would be doubtful, a skilful Indian will take his station beneath it, and with a puff from his powerful lungs, will send up his little poisoned arrows with unerring aim. The wounded birds sometimes turn giddy and drop in a few seconds, or fly away to a neighbouring tree and in a minute fall heavily to the ground, or try to pluck out the arrows with their beaks, which, however, invariably break in the wound. The hunter carefully marks the direction in which each one falls, and when his quiver is emptied of arrows or the tree of birds, walks round and gathers up the game. His weapon makes no noise, and he therefore often does more execution than the best European sportsman armed with his double-barrel Manton.

On Plate XV. fig. 1. is a fruit of the natural size; fig. 2. is the gravatána or Indian blowpipe.

Genus Raphia, Commerson.

Male and female flowers intermixed on the same spadix. No common spathe, but many small incomplete sheaths. Male flowers with from six to twelve stamens and no rudiments of a pistil. Female flowers with three sessile stigmas and barren stamens.

The stems are short, thick and ringed. The leaves are very large, regular and pinnate; the leaflets are linear and have spinulose midribs and edges. The bases of the petioles are sheathing, and persistent some way down the stem, and the margins are fibrous. The spadices grow from among the leaves, and are very large and much branched; and the fruit is oblong and covered with large imbricated scales.

There are three species of the genus known; one is a native of the west coast of Africa, another of Madagascar, while a third is found on the banks of the Lower Amazon.

Pl. XVI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
RAPHIA TÆDIGERA. Ht. 60 Ft.

PLATE XVI.
Raphia tædigera, Martius.

Jupatí, Lingoa Geral.

This is one of the most striking of the many noble Palms which grow on the rich alluvium of the Amazon. Its comparatively short stem enables us fully to appreciate the enormous size of its leaves, which are at the same time equally remarkable for their elegant form. They rise nearly vertically from the stem and bend out on every side in graceful curves, forming a magnificent plume seventy feet in height and forty in diameter. I have cut down and measured leaves forty-eight and fifty feet long, but could never get at the largest. The leaflets spread out four feet on each side of the midrib. They are rather irregularly scattered and not very closely set; they droop at the tips and have weak spinules along the margins.

The stem does not generally exceed six or eight feet in height and is about a foot in diameter, clothed for some distance down with the persistent sheathing bases of the leaf-stalks and the numerous spinous processes which proceed from them. These spines are something like those of the “Patawá,” but not so thick and strong.

The spadices are very large, compoundly branched and drooping; they grow from among the leaves and have numerous bract-like sheaths in the place of spathes.

The flowers are of a greenish olive colour and densely crowded, and the fruit is large, oblong, and reticulated with large scales.

The petiole or leaf-stalk of this tree is most extensively useful. It is often twelve or fifteen feet long below the first leaflets, and four or five inches in diameter, perfectly straight and cylindrical. When dried, it almost equals the quill of a bird for strength and lightness, owing to its thin hard outer covering and soft internal pith. But it is too valuable to the Indian for him to use it entire. He splits off the smooth glossy rind in perfectly straight strips and makes baskets and window blinds. The remaining part is of a consistence between pith and wood, and is split up into laths about half an inch thick and serves for a variety of purposes. Window shutters, boxes, bird-cages, partitions and even entire houses are constructed of it. In the little village of Nazaré near Pará, many houses of this kind may be seen in which all the walls are of this material, supported by a few posts at the angles and fastened together with pegs and slender creepers (sipós).

The hand may be easily pushed through one of these walls, but as the inhabitants do not trouble themselves with the possession of any article worth stealing, they sleep as composedly as if stone walls and iron bolts shut them in with all the security of a more advanced civilization.

The same material is also used for stoppers for bottles, and we found it answer admirably for lining our insect boxes, holding the pins securely and being more uniform in its texture than cork.

This is the only American species of the genus, and it inhabits exclusively the tide-flooded lands of the Lower Amazon and Pará rivers, being quite unknown in the interior. When descending from the Rio Negro to Pará in the summer of 1852, I observed some of our Indians who had made the voyage before, pointing out this tree to their less travelled companions as one of the curiosities of the lower country not to be found in the “Sertaõ.”

It is probable that the leaf, though not entire, is the largest in the whole vegetable kingdom, some of them covering a surface of more than 200 square feet. In a few years we may be able to see them in the magnificent Palm House at Kew, where young plants are now growing.

Plate II. fig. 1, a fruit of Raphia tædigera of the natural size.

Genus Mauritia, Linnæus.

Male flowers on one tree, female or hermaphrodite flowers on another. The spathes are imperfect, bract-ike, tubular sheaths. The male flowers have six stamens. The female flowers have a three-lobed stigma and six imperfect stamens.

The stems are either tall, columnar and smooth, or more slender and armed with strong conical spines. The leaves are all fan-shaped or radiating from a centre. The spadix is very large and pinnately branched, and grows from among the leaves. The fruits are of moderate size, oval or globular, and covered with rather small imbricated scales pointing downwards.

Four species are described by Martius, three of which occur in the Amazon district, and four more were met with by me on the Rio Negro, so that the genus seems confined to the hottest parts of the American Continent from the level of the sea to an altitude of about 3000 feet.

Pl. XVII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA FLEXUOSA. Ht. 100 Ft.

PLATE XVII.
Mauritia flexuosa, Linnæus.

Mirití, Lingoa Geral.

Muríchi, in Venezuela.

Itá? Mouth of the Orinoco.

This is one of the most noble and majestic of the American Palms. It grows to a height of eighty or a hundred feet. The stem is straight and smooth, about five feet in circumference, often perfectly cylindrical, but sometimes swollen near the middle or towards the top, so that the bottom is the thinnest part.

The leaves spread out in every direction from the top of the stem. They are very large and fan-shaped, the leaflets spreading out rigidly on all sides and only drooping at the tips and at the midrib or elongation of the petiole. The leaves stand on long stalks which are very straight and thick, and much swollen at the base which clasps the stem. A full-grown fallen leaf of this tree is a grand sight. The expanded sheathing base is a foot in diameter; the petiole is a solid beam ten or twelve feet long, and the leaf itself is nine or ten in diameter. An entire leaf is a load for a man.

The spadices grow out from among the leaves; they are very large, pinnately branched and horizontal or drooping. The fruit is spherical, the size of a small apple and covered with rather small, smooth, brown, reticulated scales, beneath which is a thin coating of pulp. A spadix loaded with fruit is of immense weight, often more than two men could carry between them.

The leaves, fruit and stem of this tree are all useful to the natives of the interior. The leaf-stalks are applied to the same purposes as those of the species last described, the Jupatí. The epidermis of the leaves furnishes the material of which the string for hammocks, and cordage for a variety of purposes is made. The unopened leaves form a thick-pointed column rising from the very centre of the crown of foliage. This is cut down, and by a little shaking the tender leaflets fall apart. Each one is then skilfully stripped of its outer covering, a thin riband-like pellicle of a pale yellow colour which shrivels up almost into a thread. These are then tied in bundles and dried, and are afterwards twisted by rolling on the breast or thigh into string, or with the fingers into thicker cords. The article most commonly made from it is the “réde,” or netted hammock, which is the almost universal bed of the native tribes of the Amazon. These are formed by doubling the string over two rods or poles about six or seven feet apart, till there are forty or fifty parallel threads, which are then secured at intervals of about a foot by cross strings twisted and tied on to every longitudinal one. A strong cord is then passed through the loop formed by all the strings brought together at each end, by which the hammock is hung up a few feet from the ground, and in this open net the naked Indian sleeps beside his fire as comfortably as we do in our beds of down.

Other tribes twist the strings together in a complicated manner so that the hammock is more elastic, and the Brazilians have introduced a variety of improvements by using a kind of knitting needles producing a closer web, or by a large wooden frame with rollers, on which they weave in a rude manner with a woof and weft as in a regular loom. They also dye the string of many brilliant colours which they work in symmetrical patterns, making the rédes or “maqueiras” as they are there called, among the gayest articles of furniture to be seen in a Brazilian house on the Amazon.

From the fruits a favourite Indian beverage is produced. They are soaked in water till they begin to ferment, and the scales and pulpy matter soften and can be easily rubbed off in water. When strained through a sieve it is ready for use, and has a slight acid taste and a peculiar flavour of the fruit at first rather disagreeable to European palates.

In the tidal districts about Pará, the massive trunks of these trees are often used to form a raised pathway across the expanse of soft mud generally left at low water between “terra firma” and the water’s edge. A smooth and slippery cylinder is certainly not the best thing that could be devised for this purpose, but as it is the most easily procured and the least expensive it is proportionately common, and on paying a visit to many a Brazilian country house, should you arrive at low water, you will have no other means of getting ashore.

The Miriti is a social palm, covering large tracts of tide-flooded lands on the Lower Amazon. In these places there is no underwood to break the view among interminable ranges of huge columnar stems rising undisturbed by branch or leaf to the height of eighty or a hundred feet,—a vast natural temple which does not yield in grandeur and sublimity to those of Palmyra or Athens.

Of the age of these noble trees we have no knowledge, but it is remarkable how uniform they appear in size, there often being not a single young tree over a considerable extent of ground, particularly in places now flooded daily by the tide. One would therefore imagine that the present trees sprung up when the ground was more elevated than at present, and that it has since gradually sunk (or the waters risen) till the conditions have become unfavourable for the growth of young plants, though not hurtful to those which had already attained a certain age. Whether such is the true explanation of the phænomenon can only be decided by continued observation on the spot.

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.

The leaf-stalks of this species are used for the same purposes as those of the Mirití and Jupatí already described, as those palms are generally absent where this is abundant. The part most generally used, however, is the leaf, which for thatching is preferred to that of any other species, on account of its having so large a portion of the base entire and being of a very durable texture. A roof well-thatched with Caraná will last eight or ten years without renewing, and the leaves are so constantly cut for this purpose that it is hardly possible to find an entire and handsome tree. Though so closely resembling the Mirití, the epidermis is never used for cordage, and on my asking an Indian the reason, he quite laughed at the idea, saying that it was quite impossible because the Caraná “did not produce any thread.”

This tree grows in the district of the Rio Negro and Upper Orinoco, but is not found on the Amazon. It prefers the dry Catinga forests, or the sandy margins of streams out of reach of the highest floods. At Javita I observed it growing within a few yards of the Mirití, but still preserving all its distinctive characters.

It is called by the natives Caraná, the smaller prickly stemmed species being known by the name of Caranaí.

Pl. XIX.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA ACULEATA. Ht. 45 Ft.

PLATE XIX.
Mauritia aculeata, Humboldt.

Caranaí, Lingoa Geral (Rio Negro).

Caraná? (Pará).

This species has a tall, erect and slender stem reaching about forty or fifty feet in height and armed with numerous, long, conical, woody spines arranged in rings. The leaves are rather small with the leaflets rigid and very slightly drooping at the tips, and united at the base for about one-eighth of their length. The petioles are long and slender and are deciduous, the entire leaf falling away from the stem. The midrib and edges of the leaflets are armed with weak spinules. The spadices are small and grow somewhat erect so as to be partly concealed among the leaves, and the fruit is oval and rather small.

This species grows on the Upper Rio Negro and Atabapo, in marshes, with a rocky subsoil, and in the moist parts of the Catinga forest. The Caraná, common in the swamps (not in the tide-flooded lands) about Pará, is very closely allied or may be the same species.

Pl. XX.
W. Fitch. lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA GRACILIS. Ht. 30 Ft.

PLATE XX.
Mauritia gracilis, n. sp.

Caranaí, Lingoa Geral.

This very elegant species is rather smaller than the last. The stem is from twenty to thirty feet high, slender, waving, and ringed with conical spines rather smaller than in M. aculeata.

The leaves are from five to eight in number with much-drooping leaflets. The petioles are slender, short, and greatly dilated at the base. The spadices are three or four in number, growing from among the leaves, of very large size in proportion to the tree, much branched and drooping. They bear great quantities of fruit, which is of an oval shape and nearly as large as that of the Mauritia carana.

This beautiful little palm is first met with about Barcellos on the Rio Negro, more than 300 miles up the river, and is thence common as far as the black-water tributaries of the Orinoco. It always grows close to the water’s edge in clumps of thirty or forty individuals, and its drooping leaves of a pale hoary green colour, never so much crowded as to lose their distinct outline, with the bending clusters of rich brown fruit, render it one of the greatest ornaments of its native river. The fruit is eaten, after being softened by soaking some time in water.

It seems closely allied to M. armata of Martius, which is found much farther south, on the banks of the S. Francisco River, but is probably quite a distinct species.

Pl. XXI.
W. Fitch. lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA PUMILA. Ht. 10 Ft.

PLATE XXI.
Mauritia pumila, n. sp.

Caranaí, Lingoa Geral.

This curious little palm is only eight or ten feet high, and has the stem slender, ringed, and armed with strong conical spines. The leaves are rather small and few in number, and the leaflets are much shorter, broader and more rigid than in any other palm of this genus. The petioles are long and rather thick, much sheathing at the bases which are persistent, clothing the stem some distance down after the leaves have dropped away from them, a character not found in any other prickly stemmed species. The spadix is very long, branched and drooping. The fruit was not seen.

I only met with this palm on the Upper Rio Negro in two localities on the sandy margins of rivers and lakes just above the limits of the winter floods.

Genus Lepidocaryum, Martius.

Male flowers on one tree, female or hermaphrodite flowers on another. Spathes, imperfect, bract-like, tubular sheaths. The male flowers have six stamens. The female flowers have three sessile stigmas and six imperfect stamens.

The stems are very slender, unarmed with spines or tubercles and deeply ringed. The leaves are fan-shaped, and have slender petioles and long swollen sheaths. The spadices are elongate and pinnately branched, growing from among the leaves. The fruits are oblong and covered with imbricated scales.

These delicate and very rare little Palms scarcely differ botanically from the last genus. Two species only are known, inhabiting the dense virgin forests of the Upper Amazon and Rio Negro, where they appear to be very locally distributed.

Pl. XXII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
LEPIDOCARYUM TENUE Ht. 8 Ft.

PLATE XXII.
Lepidocaryum tenue, Martius.

Caranaí do Mato, of the Rio Negro.

This, the smallest of the fan-leaved Palms, has a smooth, ringed, waving stem as thick as one’s finger and six or eight feet high. Its dark green glossy leaves, with narrow drooping leaflets, grow on long and slender stalks which have their sheathing bases much swollen and lengthened.

The spadices are small and slender, and the fruits, which are not abundant, are scaled in the same manner as those of the Mauritias, and are about the size of a large hazel-nut.

This rare and elegant species grows in the gloomiest depths of the virgin forest of the Upper Rio Negro, generally at some distance inland from the rivers, and shaded by the loftiest forest trees.

Plate II. fig. 4. represents a fruit of this species of the natural size.

Genus Geonoma, Willdenow.

Male and female flowers on distinct trees, or rarely on distinct spadices of the same tree. Spathe small, incomplete. Male flowers with six stamens and a rudimentary pistil. Female flowers with three stigmas and a six-toothed ring of abortive stamens.

These are small palms with slender, smooth, ringed, reed-like stems. The leaves are large, regularly or irregularly pinnate, with the leaflets broad, and the bases of the petioles sheathing. The spadices are slender and more or less branched, and the spathes are double but small and membranous. The fruits are small, round or ovate, and are not eatable.

There are thirty-three species of this genus known, all of small size, and inhabiting various parts of South America and Mexico, from the level of the sea to 2000 feet above it. Many species may be seen flourishing in the Palm House at Kew.

Pl. XXIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
GENOMA MULTIFLORA. Ht. 12 Ft.

PLATE XXIII.
Geonoma multiflora, Martius.

Ubimrána, Lingoa Geral.

This handsome species is from eight to fifteen feet high, and has the stem regularly ringed or jointed, giving it a reed-like appearance. The leaves are very large, regularly pinnate and gracefully drooping on every side. The leaflets are very regularly placed on the midrib, and the terminal pair are much larger and broader. The petioles are slender and smooth, and the sheathing bases have an expanded fibrous margin.

The spadices grow from among the lower leaves, and are short, erect and simply branched. The spathes are very small and concealed among the petioles. The fruit is small, ovate, and when ripe of a red colour.

This appears to be the Geonoma multiflora of Martius, but the species are so closely allied that without a comparison of specimens it is very difficult absolutely to identify them.

I have found it only in the Catinga forests of the Upper Rio Negro, where it occurs very sparingly.

A fruit is represented on the Plate of the natural size.

Pl. XXIV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
GEONOMA PANICULIGERA. Ht. 9 Ft.

PLATE XXIV.
Geonoma paniculigera, Martius.

Ubim de Cotiwiya, Lingoa Geral.

This is a species from six to nine feet high and very similar in appearance to the last. The leaves, however, have only three or four pairs of leaflets of irregular width, the terminal pair being always very large and broad, and the others not being always placed opposite each other on the midrib.

The spadix is large, much branched and somewhat drooping, and has a small, soft and inconspicuous basal spathe. The fruit is small and round.

This species grows in the same localities and in the same soil as the last, but is much more abundant. It appears to agree well with the G. paniculigera of Martius.

There is a very closely allied species abundant in certain parts of the flooded lands or “gapó” of the Rio Negro, which is much used for thatching. The leaves being cut, the leaf-stalks are doubled and hitched on side by side to a strip of “pashiúba,” and secured with “sipós” (which are the air-roots of Arums and other plants). They are said to make one of the most durable kinds of roof, and are much used for covering the semicircular “toldas” of canoes. They are also considered the best material for lining baskets of salt, and persons often go several days’ journey to procure them for both these purposes.

I had no opportunity of closely examining the species which produces these leaves, and which is called “Ubim,” in contradistinction to the other allied species which are termed “Ubimrana” (false ubim), “Ubim de cotiwiya” (Agouti’s ubim) and other such names, and all of which, though sometimes used as substitutes, are said to be much less durable.

Pl. XXV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
GEONOMA RECTIFOLIA. Ht. 8 Ft.