74 DE. R. SPKTJCE ON EQUATORIii^L-AMEBICAN PALMS. 



pinnate leaves with premorse leaflets, and tlie hairy fruits densely 

 packed on whorled spadices. 



After Wettinia comes the allied genus Iriartea^ consisting of 

 several species, all of which abound most in the roots of the Andes, 

 and a few descend a good way into the plain, hut only one extends 

 right across the continent to the Atlantic ocean. The original 



species, Z deltoidea (E. et P.) grows in the hills along with the 

 Wettinias, but seems to ascend higher, and never to descend into 

 the plain : its range in latitude is from about 0^ to 10"^ S. Purther 

 south are other two Subandine species, Z Orhigniana (Mart,) and 

 Z pTicGOcarjpa (Mart.) ; and northward, in the Andes of New 

 Granada, other species have been found by Karsten. 



Iriartea ventricosa (Mart.), the noblest species of the genus, 

 known from its congeners by the fusiform swelling, or belly, mid- 

 way of its trunk, has also its chief site in the lower Oriental 

 Andes, where it ascends to about 5000 feet. It is especially 

 abundant in the Porest of Canelos, near the equator, growing 

 along with Wettinia Mat/nensis y but reaching a greater elevation. 

 The most palmy hill I ever saw is a long steep ridge, rising from 

 the right bank of the river Pastasa, at about 3500 feet, to a thou- 

 sand or more feet above it, and it is almost entirely clad with Iri' 

 artea ventricosa. This palm abounds also in Maynas, where it has 

 given its Peruvian name, " Tarapoto," to one of the most flourish- 

 ing of the modern towns. Thence it descends into the plain, and 

 spreads across the Granite liegion eastward to the very sources of 

 the Orinoco, and down the Amazon and the Kio Negro to within 

 perhaps a thousand miles of the Atlantic coast, but is entirely 

 absent from the lower Amazon. 



A much lowlier species, Z setigera (Mart.), whose stems fiir- 

 nish most of the blowing-canes used in Amazonland, appears to 

 begin at the foot of the Equatorial Andes, only Avhere there is 

 granite, and to extend over the whole Granite Eegion, and down 

 the Japura, Uaupes, and Negro to the Amazon ; but I have not 

 heard of it below the mouth of the !Rio Negro. 



The last Iriartea to be mentioned is Z exorrhiza (the ^^ Paxiuba '^ 

 of the Brazilians), which begins in the Oriental Andes along with 

 Z ventricosa and the "VYettinias, but extends eastward far be- 

 yond their range to the very mouth of the Amazon, and north 

 and south across the entire breadth of the Amazonian forest. 

 Thus, out of six species of Iriartea known to grow about the 

 head-waters of the Amazon, this is the only one that extends 



