398 JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES VOL. 13, No. 18 
inflorescences more than 3 meters long, and fruits more than 2 centi- 
meters in diameter. The definite enlargement or bulging of the trunk 
is analogous to that of several other West Indian palms belong to 
different genera, Colpothrinax, Roystonea, Acrocomia, and Aeria, 
thus adding another member to this series of parallel evolutions. 
Considering that these genera are not related, but belong to dis- 
tinct families, and that other representatives of these families in the 
continental areas do not have bulging trunks, the question of a special 
cause or factor of selection that would favor the development of 
thickened trunks in the West Indies is naturally suggested. Preva- 
lence of hurricanes in the West Indian region is the most obvious 
answer, and the greater water-storage capacity of the thickened 
trunks might be an important advantage in prolonged dry seasons, 
like that of the present year in Haiti. Two other characters of the 
new Pseudophoenix may be considered as adaptations against drought. 
The trunk has a very hard outer shell, almost vitreous in texture, 
and the leaves, inflorescences, and fruits have a heavy coating of wax. 
CONFUSION OF THE WINE PALM WITH PSEUDOPHOENIX 
The trunk of Pseudophoenix insignis, though contracted above 
the bulge, is not drawn out into a long, slender neck, “‘in collum longis- 
simum elegantissimum protenditur,’’ as Martius says of Huterpe 
vinifera, the wine-palm of the buccaneers, which Beccari would place 
under Pseudophoenix. The wine-palm seems instead to have been a 
close relative of the Porto Rican llume palm, Aerta attenuata, but 
apparently with the trunk thicker and more bulging, and the fruits 
larger, as in the related Central American genera Synechanthus and 
Opsiandra. 
Though the Haitian Pseudophoenix is like Aerta in having a thick- 
ened trunk, the habits of the two palms are quite distinct. In Aeria 
there is a swelling of the basal portion of a tall, slender trunk, while in 
Pseudophoenizx the greatest diameter is above the middle of a robust 
vase-shaped trunk. In Aeria the greatest diameter of the trunk is 
at 3 or 4 meters above the base, in Pseudophoenix at 6 or 7 meters. 
The long, tapering “neck” of Aeria may attain a length of 20 meters 
or more, while the short, cylindrical “neck” of the Pseudophoenix 
is only 1 or 2 meters long, the internodes being very compact. The 
Pseudophoenix is a large palm rather than a tall palm. Aerta grows 
two or three times as high, and justifies the emphatic “alta palma” 
of Plumier’s description. 
