BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 218 
BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
Note on PIASSABA. 
To the Editor of the Kew Garden Miscellany. 
Dear Sir,—You must well remember the surprise which was caused 
among botanists by the very confident manner in which Mr. A. R. 
Wallace announced, in his little work on the ‘Palm Trees of the 
Amazon,’ that the plant producing the Piassaba of commerce is not 
the (talea funifera of Martius, but a new species of Leopoldinia, which 
he called Z. Piassaba.* Mr. Wallace honestly confessed himself but 
slightly acquainted with the science of botany, which excited still more 
surprise that he should, in his first essay, ‘ unhesitatingly ’ offer an 
Opinion in opposition to the immortal Martius, whose work he has so 
largely used in his ‘Palm Trees of the Amazon;’ while many attri- 
buted it rather to his want of a fuller knowledge of the subject. 
In your review of his book you took a wiser view of the case: — 
acknowledging your respect for the opinion of the great German — 
botanist, you nevertheless thought it advisable to inquire more fully - 
into the subject. ae 
__ * Injustice however to Mr. Wallace, and in justice to the author of the critique 
in our ‘Journal of Botany,’ we insert the following extract of a letter just received — 
from Mr. Spruce :—* When Mr. Wallace came down the Rio Negro, in September, 
1851, he showed me a few figures of Palms. I pointed out to him which seemed to 
new, and encouraged him to go on. I also proposed that we should work them 
up together, I taking the literary part and he the pictorial, which he declined. 
T had also met with some of his Palms, and had my names for them, this caused me 
to relax in my study of the tribe, seeing myself likely to be forestalled in the results 
of my labours. He has sent me a copy; the figures are very pretty, and with some 
of them he has been very successful: I may instance the figures of Raphita tedigera, - 
and Acrocomia sclerocarpa. The worst figure in the book is that of Iriartea ven- 
tricosa, The most striking fault of nearly all the figures of the larger species is- 
that the stem is much too thick compared with the length of the fronds, and that 
the latter bear only half as many pinnæ as they ought to have. The descriptions 
are worse than nothing, —in many cases not a single circumstance that a botanist 
would care to know; but the accounts of the uses are good. His Leopoldinia Pias- 
saba and Mauritia Carana are two magnificent new Palms, both correctly referred 
their genus, but the former has been figured from a stunted specimen. I have 
Series of specimens for your Museum, showing the way in which the 7 
on the tree."— It is thus clear that there are rela saig E. — 
commerce, of which the one we have as reason to believe to be the - " 
Junifera of Martius, as we know the other to be the Leopoldinia — of Mr. 
Wallace; and our friend Mr. Archer, in his present letter, thanks to ti T. rcial 
Importance of his place of residence, confirms the fact by the sta tement . d ipd 
ence in the fibres of the two.—Ep. _ (xc Fol et bo : ; 
