132 DH. B. SPKUCE ON ' \_Iriarfea, 



Iriartea, Ruiz et Pavon. 



The handsome and singular palms included in this genus by 

 Martins are distinguished from nearly all their coordinates, except 

 Wettinia, by the three following very obvious characters : 1. Stem 

 supported on a cone of emersed prickly roots; 2. Pinnse flabelli- 

 form, praemorsely truncate and usually laciniate ; 3. Spathes nu- 

 merous, the number different in nearly every species. 



The fruit may be regarded either as a berry, or as a drupe with 

 a very thin endocarp, which has usually the peculiarity of being 

 gelatinous. 



The pnlpy mesocarp is so bitter as to be inedible. The " em- 

 bryo basilaris," supposed by Martius to be common to all the 

 species, proves to belong to only a very few of them. One only 

 of the three carpels of the ovary is fertile ; and the stigmas, at first 

 apical or central, do not in all the species retain that position on 

 the ripened carpel, but in some persist near the base, and in 

 others at about midway on the inner side, in consequence of the 

 carpel swelling as it ripens much more at the outside than the 

 inside (with respect to the axis of the flower). Similar, but not 

 always corresponding, dislocations take place with the embryo, 

 which is found in the different species in almost all possible posi- 

 tions between the base and apex of the seed, although, as it would 

 appear, constant in position in the same species. These differences 

 have been laid hold on by modern authors for breaking up this 

 very natural genus into at least three (and it may be five) sup- 

 posed genera, separated from each other by no difference of habit, 



truly 



The 



* Decierta, Karst. ( = nearly Iriartea, Wendl.) ; Socratea^ Karst. ; Iriartella, 

 Wendl. ; Cafoblastus, Wendl. ; Dec^^ocaryww, Wendl. [Karsten, "Plantse Co- 

 lumbianae " in the ' Linn^a' for 1856, pp. 258-262 ; Wendland, " Bemertungen 

 iiber einige Palmengattungen Amerika's/' in the * Bonplandia ' for 1860, pp. 100- 



106.] 



I have kept notes on the structure of the fresh fruit of but three species of 

 Iriartea ; but they are types of as many genera of Karsten and Wendland : 



In /. exorrhiza^ Mart. {Socratea, Karst.), I find the embryo at the depressed 

 apex of the seed, barely within the hard horny albumen. Raphe of numerous 

 flattened filaments, radiating from the base to the apex of the seed, subramose 

 and anastomosing. _ 



/. setigera. Mart. {Iriartella, Wendl.), agrees with /. exorrhiza in the apical 

 embryo, but differs in the fruit having the stigmatic scar a little above the base, 

 on the inner side, and not near the apex as in^. exorrhiza. The raphe divide? 



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