THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



MAEOH, 19 2. 



TPIE PALM TEEES OF BEAZIL. 



By Pkofessoe JOHN C. BRANNER, 



STANFORD UNIVERSITY. 



/^F all the graceful, beautiful and bizarre plants that grow in the 

 ^-^ tropics none are more graceful and none give such character to 

 tropical vegetation as do the palms. Varied in form and size, adapt- 

 ing themselves to a wide range of elevation, sweeping up from the 

 sandy shores of the sea across marshes, flood-plains and well-watered 

 forests, over barren and thirsty deserts to the subalpine slopes of lofty 

 mountains, they are, above all plants, the ones that give character and 

 picturesqueness to every tropical landscape. And there is no place in 

 the world where one finds a greater number of species of palms or 

 where they grow more abundantly or more luxuriantly than they do 

 in Brazil, and above all, in the valley of the Amazonas. 



JSTo good word is needed for the grace and stately beauty of palm 

 trees. Those of us who live in the temperate regions already appreciate 

 these ornamental plants to such an extent that there is now an estab- 

 lished business in the manufacture of artificial palms for decorative 

 purposes, to say nothing of their extensive cultivation by gardeners 

 and seedsmen. As useful plants in other ways we know, as a rule, but 

 little about them. In their native tropics palms are better thought of ; 

 the people fully appreciate them as ornamental plants, especially for 

 large landscape effects. This is well shown in the use of the royal 

 palms in Brazil. One of the most impressive sights in the sightly city 

 of Eio de Janeiro is the avenue of royal palms at the Botanical Gar- 

 dens. It is impossible to convey an idea of the grandeur of these enor- 

 mous trees with their trunks as round and smooth as if they had been 



