THE PALM TREES OF BRAZIL. 



401 



the swarms of bees about some of the opening spathes sug- 

 gest that some of them have agreeable odors. Kerchove de Den- 

 terghem in his book on palms states that some of the flowers have very 

 pleasant odors toward evening and morning and cites four South 

 American genera as odoriferous.* The spathes or envelopes that enclose 

 the flowers of certain palms are not without interest and utility to 

 mankind. For the most part these flower sheaths are thin woody 

 envelopes that split as the flowers open and either fall off or curl up at 

 the bases of the fronds. They are not all so inconspicuous, however. 

 That of the Maximiliana regia is so large and hard and of such a 

 shape that it is used occasionally for baby cradles. This spathe is 

 often four feet long by two feet wide and has a thickness of an inch or 





Fig. 17. Palm Nuts. The Asteocaryum is One Fourth the Natural Size; the Bactris is 



Natural Size. 



more. The spathe of the uhussu is perhaps the most remarkable 

 grown on any palm tree. It will be referred to again. 



Fruits. — The fruits or nuts of the palms are usually rather small, 

 but they range in size from that of the coco nut, which is perhaps the 

 largest, down to the size of a small pea. Some of them have hard 

 fibrous coatings, others are covered with a soft edible pulp; some of 

 them are covered with short coarse hairs, some with spines, some with 

 imbricated, reversed scales ; some are fuzzy like a peach and still others 

 are smooth like a plum; some of the clusters contain only two or three 

 small nuts, while others form gigantic grape-like bunches larger than 

 a single person could lift. 



These fruits are extensively utilized for food both for man and for 

 the lower animals: sometimes it is an external pulp that is eaten, 

 sometimes it is the kernel; sometimes the pulp is used directly, often 

 it is made into a beverage. Some of the fruits have a sweet pulp, but 

 not a few have a pleasant subacid flavor, and several kinds are used 

 to make vinegar. 



*'Les Palmiers; historie iconographique.' Par Oswald de Kerchove de 

 Denterghem, Paris, 1878, p. 213. 



VOL. LX. — 26. 



