DR. E. SPBUCE ON EQUATOEIAL-AMERICAN PALMS. 89 



§ 8. Palm-fruits are all formed on one general plan, with many 

 partial modifications^ which cannot taell he classed tender only 

 two heads. 



Hence, while it is plain that all Palm-fruits are constructed on 

 the same general plan, and might therefore be well designated by a 

 single name (" drupa"), there are modifications of structure which 

 seem to require the invention of new terms for them, and are not 

 at all sufficiently distinguished by calling some fruits " drupes '* 

 and others '^berries," as is rendered plain by the contradictory 

 use different authors have made of those terms. 



§ 9. All Palms may he hr ought under Two nearly equal hut some- 

 wTiat artificial Divisions, hy the ^Estivation of the Corolla of the 



Female Flower, 



To resume the question of classification. If we seek to divide 



the entire order of Palms into two great groups by contrasting a 



single pair of characters, we find it readily in the corolla of the 

 female flower ; for, while throughout the order the petals of the 



male flowers are uniformly valvate in sestivation, and often more 

 or less united into a gamopetalous corolla, there is a very large 

 assemblage of genera which has the petals of the female flowers 

 also valvate, and another almost equally large which has them 

 widely imbricated. The division of Valvatipetalce includes all the 

 LepidocaryincG, all the true Borassinse and Coryphinae (namely, 

 those that have fan-shaped leaves), Geonoma^ Calyptronomu, Leo- 

 poldinia, and other Arecince,ch.ie&y of humble growth, and all the 

 prickly Cocoince except Acrocomia ; while the second division, or 

 Imhricatipetalce^ comprises all the unarmed Cocoince, most of the 

 taller-growing Arecinse (such as Areca, Euterpe, (Enocarpus, Iri- 

 artea, &c.) together with Phoenix and a few other pinnate-leaved 

 genera that have hitherto been tacked on to Porassina^ and Co7y- 

 phince, where they are quite out of place. 



This breaks up Arecince ; but the genera (such as (Enocarpus 

 and Oreodoxcb) thus brought into juxtaposition with Cocos and 

 Attalea have undeniably some degree of affinity, and often much 

 general resemblance to them. There are even some species of 



to 



(Enocarpus with symmetrical fruits and apical stigmas, as in 

 CocoSy contrary to tlie general character of the Arecince, which is to 

 have excentric fruits. The greatest objection, however, to making 

 these diflerences in the female flower the positive basis of a pri- 

 mary division of the order is, that we thereby separate two genera 



