PALMJE. 38] 



terms. Besides hymenium above explained, he has 

 scarcely introduced any other tlmn periduim, for the 

 round membranous dry case of the seeds in some 

 of the tirst section. The term pileus, a hat, is used 

 by all authors for the head of those fungi that com- 

 pose the second section. 



Appendix. Palmce. The natural order of Palms 

 was so little understood wlien Linnaeus formed his 

 systematical arrangement of plants, and so few of their 

 flowers had been scientifically examined, that he was 

 under the necessity of leaving tliis order as an appendix 

 to his system, till it could be better investiiiated. To 

 its peculiar habit and physiology we have adverted in 

 several of the foregoing pages, see/;. 45, 48, 103, &c. 



Late observations show Palms to have for the most 

 part six stamens, rarely three or nine, with three or six 

 petals, and one or three styles ; which last are some- 

 times in the same flower with the stamens, sometimes 

 in a separate one, but both flowers always agree in 

 general structure. Their fruit is generally a drupa. 

 They are akin to the liliaceous tribe, and Linnasus 

 happily terms them the princes of the vegetable king- 

 dom. His most numerous remarks concerning them 

 occur in his Prcelectioiies in Ordines Naturales Plan- 

 tarum^ published by Professor Giseke at Hamburgh in 

 1 79^2, from private lectures and conversations of Lin- 

 naeus. This work however is necessarily full of errors 

 and mistakes, not only from its mode of compilation 



