OF FORKED AND BRANCHED PALMS. 283 



The branching in Hyplicene, and possibly also in most palms 

 of a similar character, may therefore be regarded as due to the 

 development of side-branches arising from axillary buds, and 

 not to a division of the apical bud (fig. 1). Another point of 

 analogy is found in the development of shoots or suckers from 

 axillary buds at the base of Phoenix dactylifera, Chamcerops 

 humilis, and other palms of a soboliferous character. Further, 

 where injury has occurred to the terminal bud, the axillary buds, 

 usually dormant, are incited into growth by the abundance of 

 nourishment which the former would have monopolized. Another 

 mode of branching is produced by the development of numerous 

 adventitious buds just below the apex. The latter will be shown 

 to be common in certain genera. The particular way in which 

 axillary and adventitious buds appear, and the character they 

 give the plant when lengthened out into branches, differ in almost 

 every genus. The branching in Borassus (dichotomous or 

 whorled) is quite unlike that in Cocos (often simple forked), while 

 again in Areca (erect, branched, or candelabral) it assumes a 

 character easily distinguished from the other genera. Such 

 differences depend upon the length of the internodes, the dis- 

 tribution of the vascular bundles, and probably also the size of 



the stem. 



Branching in palms has not been fully investigated, and the 



available literature is often scanty and unsatisfactory. For 

 instance, such a record as " a Palm near Keneh (Egypt) has 

 fifteen stems from one root " *, is so vague as to be useless. This 

 may have been a branched date-palm, or a group of stems pro- 

 duced from the root-suckers of the same palm. On the other 

 hand, it may have been nothing but an ordinary specimen of the 

 Doum palm. Again, Mr. William Milne, in a note on the Palms 

 of Fiji t, speaks of" several forking varieties of palms as occur- 

 ring in those islands." There is here no clue as to the species 

 nor° any particulars as to the appearance presented by the 



trees. 



338 



specimen 



t Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinb. vi. p. 358. 



[Xote added.— In the Kew Museum is a 

 branched cocoa-nut of the Fiji Islands.-Mr. Milne." It is possible, therefore, 

 that one at least of the forking specimens seen by Mr. Milne was a cocoa-nut 



palm.] 



T 2 



