304 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1936 



mon rattans of commerce. Some palms, such as the graceful yellow 

 palm {Chrysalidocavpus lutescens) often used for indoor decoration, 

 from clumps composed of several stems. Nlpa fruticans^ of Indo- 

 Malayan marshes and estuaries, is representative of certain plume- 

 leaved palms which have a creeping stem; the huge, erect leaves, 

 arising from this stem, resemble giant feathers, sometimes 30 feet in 

 length, which appear to come directly from the ground. Still other 

 species, such as the dwarf palmetto {Sabal minor) of the south- 

 eastern United States, are low, even shrubby plants, apparently 

 possessing no stems whatever. However, the wax palms with which 

 we are here concerned are not only beautiful columnar trees but are 

 probably the most remarkable palms in the world. They far exceed 

 the most hopeful anticipations of the palm enthusiast; they are the 

 princes of the "Principes" ! 



Try to imagine a palm having a slender, smooth, shining, alabas- 

 terlike trunk which rises, shaftlike, 200 feet and more straight into 

 the air and bears at its summit a crown of feathery, silvery green 

 leaves nearly 20 feet in length. Then visualize it standing either 

 solitary or in company with others of its kind at nearly 10,000 feet 

 above sea level, within sight of perpetual snow. This is the tallest 

 and most amazing of all the wax palms of the high Andes Moun- 

 tains — it is the wax palm of the Quindio Pass in Colombia. 



The various kinds of wax palms, at present united under the 

 genus G eroxylon^ are now known to be widely distributed along 

 the length of the Andes, occurring mainly at remarkably high alti- 

 tudes, from Venezuela and Colombia into southern Peru (see map, 

 fig. 1). In Index of American Palms (Dahlgren, 1936), 16 species 

 are recorded as being in good standing; some of these are probably 

 not specifically distinct, but on the other hand this most interesting 

 group of palms has never been carefully studied and doubtless many 

 more species remain to be discovered. 



There are two outstanding reasons why the Quindio wax palm 

 just mentioned as well as certain other species are exceptional in the 

 palm family : First, the altitude at which they grow ; and second, the 

 tremendous height they attain. Palms, as every one knows, belong, 

 preeminently, to warm, moist regions. Although some of them are 

 natives of the warmer temperate climes — familiar examples are the 

 cabbage palmetto {Sabal 'palmetto)^ well known in the Carolinas, 

 Georgia, and Florida as well as in the Bahamas, and the Medi- 

 terranean fan palm {Chamaerops humilis) of southern Europe and 

 northern Africa — the family as a whole attains its best development 



* The various species of wax palms bave been described under Ceroxt/lon, Iriartea, 

 Klopstockia, and Beethovenia. For the sake of clarity in this article, the specific names 

 appear alone with the terminations as under Ccroxylon, but Humboldt's species, the type 

 of the genus, appears as C. andicola. 



