336 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
illustration ; its leaves being disposed in pairs one above 
another at the summit of the stem, but in such immediate 
contact as to form a thick crown. On account of this dis- 
position of the leaves, its appearance is totally different from 
that of any other palm with which I am acquainted. I do 
not know any palm in which the leaves are arranged in 
three directions only, as in the reeds and sedges of our 
marshes, imless it be the Jacitara (Desmonchus), whose 
winding slender stem, however, makes the observation un- 
certain. An arrangement in five different directions is 
common in all those palms which, when young, have only 
a cluster of five fully developed leaves above the ground, 
with a spade-like sixth leaf rising from the centre. When 
full grown, they usually exhibit a crown of ten or fifteen 
leaves and more, divided into tiers of five, one above the other, 
but so close together that the whole appears like a rounded 
head. Sometimes, however, the crown is more open, as in 
the Maximiliana regia (Inaja), for instance, in which the 
stem is not very high, and the leaves, always in cycles of 
five, spread slightly, so as to form an open vase rising from a 
slender stem. The Assai (Euterpe edulis) has an eight- 
leaved arrangement, and has never more than a single cycle 
of leaves, though it may sometimes have seven leaves when 
the first of the old cycle has dropped, before the ninth, with 
which the new cycle begins, has opened ; or nine, if the first 
leaf of the new cycle (the ninth in number) has opened, 
before the first of the old cycle has dropped. These leaves, 
of a delicate, pale green, are cut into a thousand leaflets, 
which tremble in the lightest breeze, and tell you that the 
air is stirring even when the heat seems breathless. A more 
elegant and attractive diagram of the Phyllotaxis of |- prob- 
ably does not exist in nature. The common Cocoa-nut tree 
