170 ' DK. E. SPRUCE o^ [^Mautitia. 



40-partita, laciniis mediisfere 3^-peJalibus, infimia vix ultra 2i-pe- 

 dalibus, tenuibus, secus medium abrupte pendulis, subtus albido-prui- 

 nosisj ad venas etiam ad laciniarum extimai-um margines aculeolis 

 ciliiformibus 3-4 lineas longia pallidis medio badiis sursum directis 



armatis. 

 Spadices bipinnati^ penduli, 2 v, 3 contemporanci. 



Flores Bacccc subglobosffi, diametro If-poUicari, basi apiceque 



depressae, conico-rostellatae, squaniulis badiis loricatse, 



Ols. — M. annataj Mart. Palm. 45, t. 41-43, ad rivulos campomm Bra- 

 siliensium reperta^ piioii valde affinis videretur, et caudicibus plu- 

 ribus (6-20) ejusdemmodi gaudet; difTert tamen foliis subtus solum 

 glaueeseentibus et baccis ovatis. 



M, Martiana^ nobis (=3/. nctdmta^ Mart. Palm. 47, t. 39. f. 3, 4, et t. 44, 

 nee JIumb,)y caudice aolitario robustiore recto, baccis ovato-globosis 

 acutis, &c. diversa est. 



The name of this Palm is a question for tKe synonymists to 

 settle. I have no doubt of its being the Palm spoken of by Hum- 

 boldt in liis ' Personal Narrative ' as ** a new species of Bache or 



Mauritia This Mauritia aculeata is called by the Indians 



* Juria ' or * Cavaja ; ' its leaves are in the form of a fan, and 



bent towards the ground The thorns are not slender and 



long like those of the Corozo and other thorny Palm trees, but, 

 on the contrary, very woody, short, and broad at the base, like the 

 thorns o£ Hura crepitans. On the banks of the Atabapo this 

 Palm tree is distributed in groups of 12 or 15 stems, as close to^ 

 gether as if they rose from' the same root." To those who have 

 travelled on the Atabapo this description is sufficient. There is 

 but one Palm that answers to it, and it is more abundant than 

 any other on the inundated shores of that river. The slender 

 prickly stems, 20 to 25 feet high, spring several together from 

 the same root, and do not merely seem to do so, as supposed by 

 Humboldt. I have often seen far more than twelve or fifteen 

 (and I once counted as many as fifty) stems arising from a single 

 root. It is a common Palm on the banks of black-water rivers 

 throughout what is now called the " Canton del Eio Negro,'* but 

 in Humboldt's time " Misiones del Alto Orinoco/* I have seen 

 it, for instance, on the Eio Negro, Uaupes, Pimichin, Pacimoni, 

 and Vasiva. Other prickly species of Mauritia grow in the same 

 region, but more frequently in forest-swamps than on river banks, 

 and they have all solitary stems. 



Although the identity of Humboldt's Palm is so plain to a 

 person who has seen it in the very place he saw it, yet when we 



