40 EXPLANATION &.C. OF THE LINNjEAN SYSTEM. 



Linnxus, at one period, formed of the palms, 

 which he had not then well examined, a twenty-fifth 

 class. Among the vegetable gnomes which his fancy 

 had created, they were the " Princes of India," bear- 

 ing their fructification on a spadix (or peculiar re- 

 ceptable) within a spathe ; remarkable for their pro- 

 digious height and flowing summit, having an unvaried, 

 undivided, perennial trunk, crowned by a sempervi- 

 rent tuft of leaves, and rich in abundance of large, 

 (and sometimes) fine fruit. 



