238 cook: glaucothea, a new genus of palms 



considered as allusion to Minerva, whose familiar Greek n^me was 

 "Athene Gray-eye." The olive tree, with its glaucous foliage, was 

 sacred to Athene, and this palm has a similar claim to distinction among 

 the members of its order. The foliage is of a very peculiar, pearly 

 grayish-green, sometimes with a slight tinge of purple. Well-grown 

 individual^ are extremelj^ beautiful, and strikingly different from 

 any other fan-palms that have been introduced into the United States. 

 Following are more extended descriptions of Glaucothea and Ery- 

 thea, with the contrasting characters stated in greater detail. 



GENERIC DESCRIPTION OP GLAUCOTHEA 



Trunk large and very robust, tapering gradually from a thick, 

 somewhat bulbous base. 



Leaves very numerous, nearly circular in general form, composed 

 of many numerous deeply divided segments; leaf-sheaihs recurved 

 only near the end; petioles armed along the margins with numerous 

 strong, hooked spines, ligule thin, without cushions of tomentum; 

 midrib distinctly developed, decurved somewhat as in Inodes, and 

 with several of the median leaf-segments reduced in size; leaf surfaces 

 rendered glaucous by a thick coating of wax. 



Inflorescences slender, erect, greatly exceeding the leaves, the axis 

 enclosed in numerous, slender, naked spathes, 3 to 5 of these borne on 

 the elongated base of the inflorescence, below the branches; primary 

 branches of two classes, the lower 4 or 5 large and subtended by spathes, 

 the others small, numerous and without spathes, together forming 

 a terminal panicle like one of the large primary branches; flowering 

 branchlets simple, very long and slender, with the flowers solitary or 

 in clusters of 2 or 3. 



Flowers minute, dull purplish, only slightly opened; sepals thick and 

 fleshy to the end, scarious only on the margins; petals broadly tri- 

 angular, with a rather blunt apex, strongly thickened within, the 

 stamens accommodated by deep excavations; staminal cup with en- 

 tire, broadly sinuate margins between the abruptly broadened bases 

 of the filaments, bearing the petals near the rim of the cup; pistils 

 set compactly together. Fruit rather small, with a thin pericarp. 



SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION 



The following details may be added to Watson's brief description 

 of the species, which gave no information regarding the inflorescence 

 or flowers. 



