118 TRUNKS. 



tensive tribe of plants, easily recognized by their pe- 

 culiar features, and furnishing, by their solitary seed 

 lobes, a discriminate character on which the botanist 

 chiefly relies. 



No forest trees are more lofty than the Palms, and 

 few attain a greater age ; yet they are regarded as pe- 

 rennial herbaceous plants, and exhibit the same inter- 

 nal structure. Their leaves spring immediately from 

 he ground, and those which are most recent, being 

 interior to the others, must of course rise above them, 

 before they are unfolded. When one system of these 

 leaves has performed its office, another appears above 

 it, and thus its power of lateral extension being limited 

 by the exterior and old bundles of leaf-stalks, all the 

 energies of the plant are directed to the elongation of 

 its stem ; which being unbranched and very lofty, gives 

 a peculiar cast to the scenery of those countries in 

 which the Palm trees abound. In northern latitudes 

 they never occur, but the White Lily, which belongs 

 to the same natural division of plants, may serve to elu- 

 cidate this subject. " Its stems, though of only an- 

 nual duration, are formed nearly on the same principle 

 as that of the Palm, and are really congeries of leaves, 

 rising one above another, and united by their bases in- 

 to an apparent stem."* 



2. CULM. — This term is applied to the stems of grass- 

 es and grass-like plants. They are usually tubular and 

 jointed, the joints being larger than the intervening 

 straws, and interrupting the continuity of the cavity 

 which vhey form. 



W T hen they form an angle at each of the joints, they 

 are termed geniculate, as in the Bent and White top, 



* Smith. 



