Wettinia.'] equatorial-American palms. 129 



genus, vindicating for it a place among true Palms, by the side of 

 Iriartea, and not intermediate between Palms and Cyclanths as 

 suggested by Poppig and Endlicher, I need not bere recapitulate 

 my arguments. Its most obvious distinction from Iriartea is in 

 the villose fruits, so densely packed on the spadices as to seem 

 concrete ; but a far more important one resides in the long narrow 

 floral envelopes, and especially in the subulate petals of the $ 

 flowers being not at all imbricated, so different from the orbicular 

 convolutely imbricated petals of Iriartea. The basal embryo is 

 shared w^ith Wendland's genera Catohlastus and Dictxfocaryum^ 

 which I suppose subgenera of Iriartea^ although I am open to 

 correction on this point ; for all I know of them is derived from 

 Wendland's description of the fruit alone, in the ' Bonplandia ' 

 for 1860. 



Since I first found Wettinia Maynensis^ in November 1855, at 

 a height of 3000^000 feet on the Andes of Maynas (lat. 6i^-7° S.), 

 in valleys running down to the great valley of the Huallaga, I 



have traversed the whole of the eastern roots of the Andes, 

 thence to the equator, and have seen the same species growing at 

 various points throughout that distance, and even occasionally 

 descending to 1000 feet on the river Pastasa. In ascending that 

 river it becomes more and more frequent, until in the forest of 

 Canelos (lat. 0^-2^ S.) it is the most prominent feature of the 

 vegetation. It often grows along with IHartea ventricosa and 

 exorrhiza, from which it is distinguished at sight by the long semi- 

 lanceolate pinnae being equidistant and all spreading out horizon- 

 tally, but pendulous (from their weight), so that the entire leaf^ 

 has a widely channelled form. But the Iriarteas have the flabel- 

 late pinnae usually deeply cloven, the uppermost lacinia of each 

 pinna standing out above the rhachis, the lowest pendulous, the 

 rest at intermediate angles. Everywhere it preserves the same 

 character; and the only feature not noted in my previous de- 

 scription of it is that the whorled spadices, usually three on a leaf- 

 ring (the two lateral ones d* , the medial $ ) are sometimes double 

 that number, but never more. Considering this uniformity over 

 so large an area, it has struck me that possibly Poppig's original 

 species (JV. augu9ta\ gathered only a little further to the south- 

 ward than mine, in the same valley of the Huallaga, was not dis- 

 tinct from the latter. I could not, however, presume to identify 

 them from Poppig's description. In my plant a notable and con- 

 stant character is that the spadices are branched, the branches 



LINK, I'EOC. BOTANY, VOL. \I. K 



