MR. SPEUCE ON FIVE KEW PLANTS FIIOM EASTERN PERU. 193 



obtained of the affinities of Wettinia among the genera of palms. 

 If we are guided by the triple ovary, then it must be stationed 

 in CoryphincB ] but the only genus described by Kunth in this 

 tribe with pinnate leaves is Phoenix, which, besides being very 

 different in habit, has the stamens never more than 9, and a 

 sessile stigma on each ovary. But if we be guided by the sum of 

 all the characters, we shall place it next the genus which most 

 resembles it in habit, viz. Iriartea. Iriartea has the same emersed 

 cone of roots, the obliquely prsemorse and incised pinnae, the 

 numerous stamens ; one species (J. setigera) has setulose fruit ; 

 and a seed of I. exorrJiiza placed by the side of one of Wettinia 

 Maynensis, is scarcely distinguishable — it is veined in the same 

 way by the vessels of the rhaphe, and the embryo has the same 

 position. If the spathes are not the same in number in the two 

 species of Wettinia, so also are they different in nearly every 

 species of Iriartea ; in I. setigera they are 4 or 5, in /. exorrhiza 

 5 or 6, and in /. deltoidea 10 to 12. Lastly, as the ovaries of 

 Wettinia are concrete at the base with each other and the central 

 style, they may, and perhaps ought to, be looked on as a deeply 

 3-cleft ovary, analogous to the 4-cleft ovary of Labiates ; and then 

 the difference from the 3-celled ovary of Iriartea will not appear 

 so very great. The character of the spadices of Wettinia, pre- 

 viously alluded to, though striking at first sight, does not disturb 

 the affinity with Iriartea. 



Hence we may either place Wettinia in Coryphinse, and con- 

 sider it analogous to Iriartea in Arecinse, or, by another classifi- 

 cation of the genera of palms, place it actually by the side of 

 Iriartea. 



Wettinia Maynensis is not unfrequent at the head of valleys in 

 the Maynensian Andes*, both north and south of the river Mayo, 

 at an elevation of from 3000 to 4000 feet, where it grows in com- 

 pany with the Chontaf (JEuterpe oleracea?), the Tarapoto {Iri- 

 artea ventricosa, Mart. ; the Paxiuha harriguda of Brazil), and 

 another Iriartea, which is perhaps I. deltoidea, Buiz et Pav., 



* I apply the term " Maynensian Andes" to so mucli of the eastern slopes 

 of those mountains as was comprehended in the ancient province of Maynas. 

 They are watered by the lower part of the Huallaga till it emerges into the 

 great Amazonian plain through the Pongo of Chasuta, and by some of its 

 principal tributaries, especially by the Mayo, which, taking its rise a little east- 

 ward of Chachapoyas, passes Moyobamba and Lamas, and enters the HuaUaga 

 near Tarapoto. 



t The name " Chonta" is appHed in Maynas to two species of Euterpe, and 

 also to the palmifo or terminal bud of all palms. 



LTNN. PROO. — BOTANY. O " 



