OF THE AMAZON. 69 



PLATE XXVI. 

 Manicaria saccifera, Gartner. 



Bussii, Lingoa Geral. 



This unique and handsome palm has the stem from ten 

 to fifteen feet high, curved or crooked and deeply 

 ringed. The leaves are very large, entire, rigid and 

 furrowed, and have a serrated margin ; they are often 

 thirty feet long and four or five wide, and split irre- 

 gularly with age. The petioles are slender with a 

 broadly expanded fibrous-edged sheath at the base. 

 These sheaths are persistent and often cover the stem 

 down to the ground. 



The spadices are numerous, growing from among the 

 leaves, and are simply branched and drooping. The 

 fruit is of an olive colour, somewhat three-lobed and 

 with a rugose or papillate exterior covering. The 

 spathe is fusiform and entire, of a fibrous cloth-like 

 texture and of a brown colour. As the spadix expands 

 it breaks open irregularly, but in some cases a dead 

 unopened flower bunch is found enclosed in an entire 

 half-rotten spathe, as if the vital powers of the plant 



