226 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
Finding in the female flowers of J. deltoidea the series of rudi- 
mentary stamens which Karsten had considered distinctive of his 
genus Deckeria, Wendland reunited this to Iriartea, though he ac- 
cepted Karsten’s second genus Socratea as well founded. Three 
new genera, Triartella,' Catoblastus,? and Dictyocaryum, were. pro- 
posed by Wendland, who also transferred to this group the genus 
Wettinia, previously established by Poeppig and Endlicher, but not 
at first recognized as a palm because of its peculiar, somewhat cycad- 
like inflorescence. 
Wendland’s association of Karsten’s Deckeria with Iriartea was 
later found by Drude * to have been a mistake, for the type species 
of Iriartea proved to have the embryo basal instead of lateral, as 
Wendland had supposed, and to have the first leaves divided, as 
well as the terminal segments of the adult leaves, which are united 
in Deckeria. The spadix of Deckeria has thickened branches, with 
the flowers inserted in pits. Thus Karsten’s genus Deckeria must 
evidently be retained, making seven genera which Wendland would 
probably have recognized if he had been acquainted with the fruits 
of the type species of Iriartea. In distinguishing these genera, 
Wendland relied largely on the fruits, but Drude has supplied ad- 
ditional characters by which some of the groups can be more readily 
separated.‘ 
The seven genera could be arranged in two series with reference 
to the distribution of the flowers. One series is characterized by the 
presence of functional flowers of both sexes in the same inflorescence, 
the other by having flowers of the two sexes in separate inflorescences, 
though still on the same individual. The first series, with the flowers 
of the two sexes together, is composed of the five genera Triartea, 
Dictyocaryum, Deckeria, Socratea, and Iriartella, leaving Catoblastus 
and Wettinia for the other series with the flowers of the two sexes 
separated. 
In Drude’s classification of the palms, in Engler and Prantl’s 
Natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien,® the genera Catoblastus and Wettinia 
are associated with Iriartea. They differ very distinctly in the char- 
acters of the flowers, having the sexes separated in different in- 
florescences and the carpels unequally developed, only one producing 
a normal ovule. Of the three new forms described in the present 
paper, two may be considered to be intermediate between Iriarten 
and Wettinia, in that male flowers are still present in rudimentary 
form on the pistillate inflorescence. The first of these is more 
'Bonplandia 8: 103. 1860. “See Mart. Fl. Bras. 3°: 585. 1882. 
2See p. 281, below. ° 2°:60, 61. 1889. 
3 Bonplandia 8:106. 1860, 
