46G PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



stand in clusters of three to five together. The blade of the leaf is 

 about twelve or fifteen feet long, rounded and bifid at the apex, very 

 irregularly divided, the segments being unequal in width and either 

 approximate or more or less remote, sometimes coherent toward the 

 margin. The primary veins are about six or eight lines apart ; the 

 usually lanceolate teeth for the most part bi-dentate; the rhachis tri- 

 angular or rhomboidal in section, acute above, flat or more or less 

 carinate beneath, rufous-tomentose or glabrate. The spathes are sev- 

 eral from among the lower living leaves, two feet long or less, thin- 

 fibrous to the acute apex, persistent over the fruit ; the long peduncle 

 compressed. The spadix is rufous-tomentose, with ten to twenty sim- 

 ple branches which together are twelve to eighteen inches long ; stam- 

 inate calyx about two lines long, half the length of the oblanceolate 

 acute petals ; pistillate flowers usually solitary on each branch, the 

 lanceolate petals six or seven lines long; ovary beaked by the upright 

 stigmas (two lines long), smooth, but the thin epidermis soon broken 

 away, and the surface becoming densely muriculate. The fruit is 

 simple, double, or triple, covered with acute pyramidal gibbosities, 

 globose when simple, and two inches in diameter ; nut brownish black, 

 fifteen lines in diameter. 



This is probably the same species that, as found in Trinidad, is im- 

 perfectly described by Grisebach (Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 518), and it is 

 pretty clearly distinct from 31. saccifera, Gaertn. What is called the 

 upper spathe by Bentham & Hooker, and the lower spathe by Drude, 

 was the only one observed. The upper membranous spathe of Drude's 

 description (Fl. Bras. 3^ 518) is probably only an empty bract, of 

 which there are usually several upon the enclosed peduncle. This 

 palm is known at Livingston as the "Confra Palm," and its leaves 

 are used exclusively for thatching. Of all the full-grown fruit col- 

 lected by me on the 20th of April, but very few were found to be 

 mature. 



Bactris balanoidea, Wendl. This species, as respects the pis- 

 tillate flowers and fruit, is well described and figured by Oersted 

 under the name of Augustlnea balanoidea (Vidensk. Middel. 1858, 39, 

 and L'Amer. Centr. t. 9, fig. 1-13). The foliage is described and 

 figured equally well under A. ovata, and there is little reason for be- 

 lieving that the two are distinct. It is frequent near the shore of 

 Lake Yzabal, where it is known by the name of " Poknoboy," and its 

 tough slender stems are much used by the natives in the walls of their 

 houses. It is gregarious, growing to a height of eiglit or ten feet, 

 with a diameter of an inch or more, covered with numerous black 



