55 GROWTH OF MOKO.COTYLEDCNES. 



of plants, have justly acquired the name of 

 trees. Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, they 

 are rather perennial herbaceous plants, having 

 nothing in common with the growth of trees 

 in general. Their nature has been learnedly 

 explained by M. Desfontaines, a celebrated 

 French botanist, and by M. Mirbel in his 

 Traitt d'Anatomie etdePhy&Qlogie Vegetales, 

 vol. 1. p. 209, and Linnaeus has long ago made 

 remarks to the same purpose. The Palms are 

 formed of successive circular crowns of leaves* 

 which spring directly from the root. These 

 leaves and their footstalks are furnished with 

 bundles of large sap-vessels and returning ves- 

 sels, like the leaves of our trees. When 

 one circle of them has performed its office, 

 another is formed within it, which being con- 

 fined below, necessarily rises a little above 

 the former. Thus successive circles grow one 

 above the other, by which the vertical in- 

 crease of the plant is almost without end. 

 Each circle of leaves is independent of its pre- 

 decessor, and has its own clusters of vessels, 

 so that there can be no aggregation of woody 

 circles; and yet in some of this tribe the, 

 spurious kind of stem, formed in the manner 



