En DOG ENS.] 



PALM ALES. 



133 



Alliance IX. PALM ALE S.—Tm:. Palmal Alliance. 



DikQUO&i?,.— Unisexual {or bisexual) Endogem, with perfect flowers^ seated on a branched 

 scaly spadix, am,d a minute embryo lodged beloiv the surface of horny or fleshy albumen. 



At this point the vegetative force of Endogens acquii-es its maximum power, resulting 

 for the most part in trees of gigantic stature, always formmg wood, and occasionally 

 , arriving at dimensions wholly un- 



^Iv^'S^H^ 



\l■^''^ 



at 

 known among other plants, as in the 

 instance of some of the Calami or 

 Rotangs, which Rumphius assures 

 us are sometimes as much as 1200 

 or even 1800 feet long, {Rumphitty 

 2. 158.) A WTiter in the Liunsea, 

 (14. 263) asserts that Palms are 

 nearer Arads than to any other 

 order of Endogens, and 1 think him 

 so right that I should have followed 

 Meisner in including Palms in the 

 Aral alhance, if it had not been for 

 their perfect floral envelopes, the 

 uniformly indeterminate station of 

 theii' embryo, and the tendency that 

 exists among them to form § flow- 

 ers ; which circumstances bring them 

 close upon Lily worts, and seem to in- 

 dicate a higher organ of organization 

 than we find among the incomplete, 

 flowered, constantly $ $ Aral plants. 

 The general opinion of Botanists 

 seems to be m favour of regarding 

 Palms as one natural order, an opi- 

 nion to which it does not seem at 

 present desirable to object. It may 

 howc\er be observed, that the scaly- 

 fruited genera, called Lepidocarymae 

 by Martins, Calamese by Kvmth, and 

 Calaminae by Griffith, offer in that 



1 Fig. XC. 2 



circumstance, and also in most instances in their habit, a very considerable deviation 

 from the condition of the other genera, and seem to indicate the existence ot at least 

 one natural order to be struck off the true Palms. 



Fig. XC— Palm Trees (Blume). 1. Corypha Gebanga; 2. ^'ipa fruticans (see Pandanacese). 



