100 American Horticultural Society. 



may be namod the Geonoma acaulis, Macrostachia, Trinax ar;4entea, Cham- 

 uTops arf^cntoa, I'lid-iiix acaulis, Licuala paliuloea, etc., and among the tree 

 l)alm.s the PlKonix daftylifera, P. nylveslris, Elieis guineensis, Iriartea ph:co- 

 carpa, Euterpe, Syagrus botryophora, AttJilea spinosa, A. excelsa, A. compta, 

 A. phalerata, Cahuno, Mauritia vinifera, M. (Ipxuosa, Orbignia phalerata, 

 Copeniicia cerifera, Cocos Yiitai, Corypha Of banga, Areca Nibung, etc. 



Such varied features give the pahii.s an independent .><tiimp, and make 

 them, with their carriage, the character plants, not only of a landscape, but 

 of whole countries. The proud, royal form of oome palms is often developed 

 from a very small germ. Those of our pea.s or beans are giants compared 

 with it. If we look closely at the stone of a date we ob.serve on its rounded 

 back a small cavity, and cutting through the horny substance of the seed we 

 perceive a small whitish corpuscle. This is the germ. The substance of the 

 t<tone is the albumen and starch which furnish nourishment t ) the germi- 

 nating ])lant. It is, indeed, the same substance as the tl )ur of the cerealia, 

 and which has a fleshy or oily constitution in many other plants. The germ 

 of the palm develops very slowly into a tree. Years often pass before the 

 plant begins to form the stem, and the body of the stock has increased to 

 considerable thickness before it rises up to a stem lik^^ rounded shaft. 



Of the shooting up of the young plant into a wood}- twig. as we see even 

 during the first year with our fruit and forest trees, not a trace can be ob- 

 f^erved in the palnn. But once the stem commences to form, it grows on 

 and on in yearly swelling height, pushing forth on its summit ever green 

 new leaves; and in this manner, at last, after many years, running on to 

 eenturies almost, the mighty columns of 100, 150 and even li^> feet high are 

 developed, with their large capital of leaves on the summit, which we can 

 not but so much admire. 



The conception is so very general that th? pdm always appe.irs as a 

 tall, straight column, which terminates in a cluster of leaves, that no other 

 form is thought of. But we have a great number of palms which have quite 

 a different growth. Many never show above the soil more llian tlieir crown 

 of leaves ; other forms are those of the climbing ])alms or rattans. The well- 

 known Spanish c uie (sometimes wrongly called bamboo) is the stem of • 

 such a palm. This cane, as do others of the same tribe, climbs like an end- 

 less, tenacious rope of several hundred feet in length, in the forests of the trop- 

 ical zone, particularly in southern Asia. From stem to stem, from crown to 

 crown, it winds its way, not seldom through several mighty forest monarchs, 

 pissing b'^tween their limits in great sinuous arches. These stems of the 

 climbing palms are the longest vegetable growths in the wt)rld, and if 

 stretched out would often measure 500 and 600 feet in extent. 



.\s a freak of na'ure, a few palms occasionally divide into two or more 

 branches, as is constant and typic with the Doum palm {Iii/ph;int' fluhnica) 

 of northern Africa, and p4rticularly of the valley of the Nile, and of Nubia, 

 Abyssinia and Arabi.i. We see this palm forming one of the decorations of 

 the Egyptian provinces, and at the cataracts of the Nile it stands isolated, 



