OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 467 



spiues from two to four inches long. The regularly pinnate leaves 

 have the flatteued-quadrangular pubescent rhachis similarly armed ; 

 the segments aculeolate upon the margins, about an inch apart, a foot 

 long by eight lines wide, acuminate, one side produced about an inch 

 beyond the other. The spathe, about a foot long, is densely aculeate 

 (excepting the narrow base), and the peduncle of the spadix is black 

 with densely crowded prickles. The roughish nut is irregularly ob- 

 long, with one pore near the oblique summit, and the other two near 

 the middle, their margins more prominent than they are figured by 

 Oersted. 



Bactris Cohune. Stems erect, straight and slender, six to fif- 

 teen high, covered with the persistent sheaths of dead leaves and 

 armed with numerous black and shining flattened spines (often a half- 

 inch broad and two inches long or more). Leaves irregularly pinnate, 

 glaucous beneath, the petiole and rhachis (convex beneath, promi- 

 nently ridged above) tomentose and armed ; segments very unequal, 

 often distant, long-attenuate (three feet long), sparingly aculeolate on 

 the margin, the primary veins about six lines apart. Spathes several, 

 eight to twelve inches long, white-tomentose, the base and slender 

 acumination unarmed, the inflated portion (six inches long) covered 

 with black slender flattened spines six lines long. Spadix branched, 

 armed at base, the pistillate flowers sessile on the rhachis, the stami- 

 nate covering for their whole length the numerous very slender 

 branches (two or three inches long). Staminate calyx very thin and 

 densely woolly ; petals lanceolate, united at base, over two lines long ; 

 stamens four. Calyx and corolla of the pistillate flowers somewhat 

 aculeate, coriaceous, urceolate, dentate ; corolla six or eight lines long ; 

 calyx nearly half as long ; disk none. Ovary aculeate, acuminate, 

 3-celled ; style stout ; stigmas very short. Fruit densely prickly, 

 nearly two inches long, narrowly obovate, somewhat attenuate above 

 and beaked ; the somewhat fibrous pericarp and more woody endocarp 

 not separable, scarcely a line in thickness, 1-celled ; seed obovate, 

 acute at base, rounded above, an inch long, the surface reticulated ; 

 embryo near the summit. 



This palm, which does not appear to be nearly allied to any de- 

 scribed species of the genus, is abundant in the Chocon forests, and is 

 called the " Warree Cohune " from the resemblance of its fruit in shape 

 to those of (he Aitalea, and in their bristly covering to the " warree " 

 or white-lipped peccary of the country. It is also called " Lancetia," 

 from the lancet-shaped spines with which the stem is covered. The 

 fruit is eatable, and is much more easily broken than that of the co- 



