136 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



10 or 12 inches in diameter. The petioles are very stout (1| inches 

 broad at the summit), with a ligule 6 inches long, and the blade 

 (3 feet long or more) cleft a third of the way down between the 

 plaits, which are an inch broad. The spadix is elongated and slender; 

 the calyx and petals (1| lines long) strongly nerved. The berries 

 are often in pairs, 9 lines in diameter, sweet and edible ; seeds 5 or 

 6 lines broad by 3^ thick, very much larger than those of any of the 

 Atlantic States species. 



Washingtonia Sonor^, Watson, Prcc. Amer. Acad. 24. 79. 

 Dr. Palmer has recently sent from La Paz, Lower California, addi- 

 tional foliage of this species, together with flowering specimens. The 

 flowers and inflorescence resemble very closely those of the San 

 Bernardino species, having the calyx and petals somewhat thinner and 

 more scarious, and the spadix very slender and sparingly branched. 

 The petioles of the older leaves (3 feet long above the sheath and 

 tapering from 2 inches to 9 lines in breadth) are very strongly con- 

 vex on the lower side, thinning abruptly toward the margin, es- 

 pecially below the middle. The margin is thickly beset with very 

 stout variously curved spines, which are mostly connected by a thick 

 web of floccose hairs. In the young plant the petioles are very 

 slender (2 lines broad), with scattered spines on the margin. 



It has been diflicult to identify satisfactorily the W. jiliferu and 

 W. rohusta of the gardens with the native palms of southern Cali- 

 fornia. These two species as shown by Wendland (upon whose 

 authority they rest) in the palm-houses at Herrcnhausen, and as 

 represented by specimens received from him and growing at the 

 Botanic Garden at Cambridge, are so evidently different that they 

 may well be distinct, — the latter species having darker green and 

 more shining leaves upon shorter and stouter petioles, which give a 

 more robust appearance to the plant. The source of the seeds from 

 which the original '■'■ Braliea filifera'^'' was raised by Linden at Ghent 

 in about the year 1869 (as narrated by Wendland in Bot. Zeit. 37. 

 65) is not stated. I am informed, however, by Mr. W. G. Wright 

 of San Bernardino, that for some years after that date the only source 

 of seeds for the market was the trees in Cantilles Caiion (and perhaps 

 also Palm Valley) in Lower California near the Mexican boundar}', 

 from which places the San Francisco seedsmen obtained their sup- 

 ply. In later years seeds were procured from localities east of San 

 Bernardino, and from these originated the W. rohusfa. So far as I 

 am able to judge from photographs and from the material in the Gray 

 Herbarium, the palms of San Bernardino County are this species, 



