A PACIFIC-SLOPE PALMETTO. 
BY WILLIAM TRELEASE. 
While botanizing in the vicinity of Ures, the former 
capital of the Mexican State of Sonora, in August, 1900, 
my attention was attracted by a scattering forest of a 
graceful palm with most beautifully glaucous foliage, nearly 
ripe fruit of which shows it to belong to the genus Sabal, 
of which it appears to constitute an undescribed and very 
distinct species which may be characterized as follows: — 
SaBaL URESANA, Dn. sp. Trunk 5 or 10 meters high and upwards of 
30 cm. in diameter. Leaves glabrous, very glaucous; petiole stout, 
concavo-convex, unarmed, about 1 m. long, 2 cm. wide and nearly 1 cm. 
thick; blade about 1 m. long and wide, multifid, with coarse straw-colored 
fibers from the sinuses, the center arcuately recurved. Fruit of a single 
developed carpel, depressed globose, 15 to 20 mm. in diameter, edible, 
green or when dry dingy brown and somewhat glossy, the mesocarp 
then cottony; endocarp whitish straw-color, glossy within. Seed 
polished, dark chestnut-brown, labyrinthiform-rugose, much depressed, 
12 7 mm. — Plates 35-7. 
Sonora, Mexico, in the uplands, a few miles to the north 
of Ures. 
From the two arboreous palmettos of the United States, 
8. Uresana differs markedly in its pale very glaucous 
foliage, and in the size of its fruit, which is of thrice the 
diameter of that of S. Palmetto, and usually a third larger 
than in 8. Mexicana, with the former of which species it 
agrees in having, so far as I know, but one of the three 
carpels developed and fertile, while in S. Mexicana two 
or even all three are not infrequently developed. 
Considering the extent to which this section of Mexico 
has been visited by collectors of seeds it would be remark- 
able if this attractive plant should not prove to be 
already in cultivation in European gardens, and a leaf of a 
Separates issued April 16, 1901. (79) 
