of their translation from the old stoves, many of them growing 
with a rapidity almost incredible to those who do not witness 
it, exhibiting something of their native character, and not a few 
of them bearing flowers and fruit; so that we shall take ad- 
vantage of our success, and from time to time present figures 
in the pages of our Magazine. But here, at the first intro- 
duction as it were of our design, we meet with difficulties of no 
ordinary kind, in endeavouring to ascertain the correct nomen- 
clature of the species. ‘The present one for example, received 
from Bahia, Brazil, has been long cultivated at Kew under the 
name of Astrocaryum Ayri: but we find it much at variance with 
the 4. Ayri figured and described by Martius; the nature and 
direction of the aculei, the leaflets or pinne, the shape and size 
of the spatha being altogether at variance, nor can we find that 
it better accords with any other described species of the genus ; 
so that nothing remains for us (presuming that the known spe- 
cies are correctly described) but to consider our plant as a new 
species, and to characterize it accordingly. The name is derived 
from the evident rostrum or beak of the spatha, and the fruit is 
no less distinctly rostrate. 
Descr. Our tallest plants stand about ten feet high including 
the leaves. Caudez, to the springing of the lowest leaves, erect, 
scarcely a foot high, closely annulated with the scars of the fallen 
leaves, and there quite unarmed. eaves six to eight feet long, 
including the petiole, which is about equal in length with the 
blade, and is densely clothed with a mass of short bristly prickles 
or aculei, intermixed with a great number of long and strong 
black ones, hard and rigid, two to four inches long, triangular, 
glossy: the é/ade of the leaf is oblong, split at the apex, formed 
of a very great number of pinne, which are two to three feet long, 
linear, acuminate, less than an inch wide in the broadest part, 
costate and with two parallel nerves on each side the midrib ; the - 
margin ciliated with distant black aculeiform sete, single or 
twinned, above dark green, naked, and somewhat below glaucous, 
apparently from a minute scurfy covering, and rough to the touch 
with minute black raised points. Spatha axillary, on a short 
stipes, erecto-patent, pale greyish-brown, a foot or rather more 
long, cymbiform, thick-coriaceous, almost woody, terminating in 
a distinct narrow beak, opening outwardly, externally (except 
the beak) covered with innumerable patent (below a little de- 
flexed), strong, black aculei, from half an inch to an inch long. 
The whole interior is occupied by a compound stalked spike of 
numerous closely placed whitish or cream-coloured flowers ; the 
_ stalk or petiole downy, with a few appressed bracts and appressed 
black prickles. Spikelets cylindrical, clothed with male flowers ; 
_ some of them having a solitary female flower at the base. The 
