Attalea.'] equatobial-amebican palms. 165 



rinecd^ Calophyllum^ and different species oi Amyris that surround 

 them. The leaves of the Jagua, which are few in number (rarely 

 so many as 7 or 8), are 16 or 17 feet long, and rise almost verti- 

 cally into the air; their extremities are curled like plumes; the 

 ultimate divisions, or leaflets, having only a thin grass-like paren- 

 chyma, flutter lightly round the slowly balancing central leaf- 

 stalks." — Aspects of Nature ^ ^^Physiognomy of Plants ^ 



Of this account it is to be remarked ; — (1) that the dimensions 

 are probably mere estimates ; for I found the leaves double the 

 length, or 34 English ( = 32 French) feet, and I counted on one 

 leaf 213 pairs of pinnae ; and (2) that Humboldt, writing (as he 

 says) after he had left the country, has probably mixed up his 

 impressions of the Yagua and of the Palm described above under 

 the name of Cocos Orinocensis ; for the latter abounds much more 

 at the cataracts than the Tagua, and it has only a few leaves at a 

 time, whereas the crown of the Tagua contains usually a great 

 many leaves. However that may be, the Palm above described 

 (from a noble specimen that I hope may still be standing at the 

 bifurcation of the Casiquiari) is certainly what is called "Yagua" 

 at this day. Its most striking feature is that the pinnae are ar- 

 ranged vertically, and not horizontally as in other Palms, and it is 

 caused by the rhachis being so much thinned away at the sides 

 so very narrow in proportion to its thickness* — that it bends in 

 the plane of the pinnae, and not in a plane perpendicular to that 

 plane as In the generality of palms. The leaves spring up almost 

 perpendicularly at the base, but in the upper part arch over, to 

 one side or the other, as the wind sways them. The pinnae 

 stand at right angles to the rhachis, and while those on the 

 lower side of the arch hang straight down, those on the upper 

 side point straight up, and from their constrained position quiver 

 and flutter with every breath of airt. 



In a letter written to Sir W. Hooker just after my return 

 from the Casiquiari to San Carlos, I referred the Palma Tagua 

 to Maximiliana, moved thereto by having found an hypogynous 

 cup in the $ flowers, such as Kunth in his ' Enumeratio ' (fol- 



At midway of leaf, the rhachis ia 9 lines thick {i. e, perpendicularly to plane 

 of leaf), 4 lines broad at back, and in front tapers to an edge ; at the apex it is 



stiU more compressed, 



t Something of the eame kind is occasionally seen in the letves of Cocos nu- 

 cifera, but only near their points, where a haK-twist of the rha;;hi9 brings a few 

 of the upper leaflets into a nearly vertical position- 



