ILLUSTRATIONS (15). PALMS. 303 



In palms with feathery leaves the leaf-stalks either burst 

 from the dry, rough, ligneous portkwi of the stem (as in 

 Cocos, Phamix, Palma Real del Sinu), or there rises in the rough 

 part of the stem a grass-green, smooth, and thinner shaft, like 

 one column above another, from which the leaf-stalk springs, 

 as in Palma Peal de la Havana, Oreodoxa regia, which excited 

 the admiration of Columbus. In the fan-palms (foliis pal- 

 matis), the leafy crown often rests on a layer of dry leaves, 

 which imparts to the tree a character of melancholy solemnity 

 and grandeur (as in Moriche, Palma de sombrero de la Ha- 

 vana). In some umbrella-palms, the crown consists of a very 

 few scattered leaves, raised on slender stalks (as in Mir aguama). 



" The form and colour of the fruit also present more variety 

 than is generally supposed to be the case in Europe. Mau- 

 ritia flexuosa has egg-shaped fruits, whose smooth, brown, 

 and scaly surface gives them the appearance of young pine 

 cones. How great is the difference between the large trian- 

 gular cocoa-nut, the berry of the date, and the small stone- 

 fruit of the Corozo ! But of all the fruits of the palm, none 

 can be compared for beauty with those of the Pirijao (Pihi- 

 guao) of San Fernando de Atabapo and of San Balthasar. 

 They are oval, and of a golden colour (one-half being of a 

 purplish red) ; are mealy, without seed, two or three inches 

 in thickness, and hang in clusters like grapes from the summits 

 of their majestic palm-trunks." I have already spoken in the 

 earlier part of this work of these beautiful fruits, of which 

 there are seventy or eighty clustered together in one bunch, 

 and which can be prepared in a variety of ways like bananas 

 and potatoes. 



The spathe enclosing the blossom bursts suddenly open in 

 some species of palms, with an audible report. Richard 

 Schomburgh has like myself observed this phenomenon^ 1 in 

 the flowering of the Oreodoxa oleracea. This first opening 

 of the blossoms of the palm accompanied with noise, reminds 

 us of Pindar's Dithyrambus on Spring, and of the moment 

 when in the Argive Neinsea, " the first opening shoot of the 

 date-palm announces the coming of balmy spring."f 



Palms, bananas, and arborescent ferns constitute three 

 forms of especial beauty peculiar to every portion of the 



* Schomburgk, Reisen in Britisch Guiana, Th. i. S. 50. 

 t Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 376. (Bohn's Edition.) 



