62 NOTICES OP BOOKS. 



of kinds copied from specimens in the Museum of the Eoyal Gardens 

 of Kew : and these occupy two plates apart from the species to which 

 they belong. Fifty " species " are here noticed ; and of these, fifteen 

 are considered new. Among them is the " Piassaha, or Chiquichiqui of 

 Venezuela" {Leopoldinia Fiassada of Mr. Wallace, Plate vi.), and not 

 the Attalea funifera^ as we had been led to believe, after much inquiry, 

 as we have stated in the Journal of Botany for 1849 (vol. i. p, 121. t. 4), . 

 although that is the "Pia9aba" of southern Brazil, where its fibre 

 appears to be employed for similar purposes. We do not in the least 

 call in question the accuracy of Mr. Wallace's statement that his is 



■ 



the tree which now furnishes, on so large a scale, the brooms and 

 brusTies of modern days ; nor are we able to deny its being a Palm 

 hitherto unknown to Botanists; but we do complain that a Naturalist 

 who is able " to make out its geographical range so exactly, from 

 having resided more than two years among people whose principal oc- 

 cupation consisted in obtaining the fibrous covering of this tree, and 

 from whom no locality of it can have remained undiscovered," should 

 never have been at the pains to procure flowers and fruit for the illus- 

 tration of so interesting a plant. The fruit too is said to be esculent, 

 and employed to form a thick drink, by washing off the outer coat of 

 the pulp ; and the leaves form an excellent thatch, and are almost tini- 

 versally used in that portion of Venezuela on the upper Kio Negro. 

 From that district several hundred tons of the fibre m*e cut annually 

 and sent to Para, from which place scarcely a vessel sails for England 

 without its forming a part of her cargo. We trust Mr. Spruce, now in 

 that country, will make up for this deficiency. Of the genus Cocos^ 

 Mr. Wallace tells us that few species of the genus are found in the 

 Amazon district : yet he has taken no notice of them, but, instead, has 

 given a plate of the Coco^ nuclfera^ which is " not a native of South 

 America, but cultivated there." 



The work is certainly more suited to a drawing-room table than to 

 the library of the botanist. 



Macdonald, Geokge, Esa., and Allan, James, Esq. The Bota- 



' NiST^s WoRD-BooK : an etymological and explanatoi^ Vocabulary 

 of the terms employed in the Sciertce of Botany^ for use in Colleaes. 



Study. 12mo. Loudon: Lovcll Reeve 



We 



