A Synopsis of the Palms of Puerto Rico 



By O. F. Cook 

 (With Plates 43-48) 



The following systematic notes have been accumulated in con- 

 nection with economic studies of Puerto Rico* palms, and although 

 the list is doubtless still incomplete, the printing of it may be justi- 

 fied as a means of securing at least provisional names needed for 

 reference purposes in connection with other publications of a non- 

 systematic character. 



The palms may well be considered a very refractory group 

 when handled by the conventional methods of systematic botany. 

 Difficult at once to collect or to study from dried material, they 

 are commonly neglected both in the field and in the herbarium, 

 with the result that literature is scanty and unsatisfactory. A very 

 large proportion of the descriptions are entirely inadequate for the 

 identification of species, and there has been much lawlessness and 

 diversity in the application of generic names, as will appear from 

 some of the instances discussed below. Difficulties of description 

 and classification have also been multiplied by the fact that the 

 palms are such peculiar plants that analogies and criteria borrowed 

 from other families are often inapplicable and misleading. More- 

 over, the terminology of parts and characters has not been devel- 

 oped to the point where the expression of observed differences is 

 easy, and available language often fails completely to suggest 

 the significance of the characters used. Thus the fibers into which 

 parts of the leaf-bases of many palms are resolved afford many 



;: This spelling and the adjective use of the name in this form are editorial corrections. 

 [Issued 26 October] 525 



