Nov. 4, 1923 COOK: PSEUDOPHOENIX INSIGNIS 403 
Type in the U. 8. National Herbarium, nos. 1,145,487-1,145,492, collected 
about 3 miles from the locality known as Passe Reine, about 21 kilometers 
east of Gonaives and 10 kilometers west of Ennery, Haiti, July 28, 1923, by 
O. F. Cook (no. 28). These specimens are from a single large individual which 
grew on a slope well covered with the palms. A few of the seeds were planted 
at Port-au-Prince, August 2, 1923,in the garden of H. P. Davis, and the 
remainder brought to Washington. The palms appeared most abundantinthe 
district of Gonaives, several miles back from the coast, between Gonaives and 
Ennery. Others were seen on higher mountains a few miles out of Gonaives 
toward Dessalines at Savnane Lacroix, and a small number about 20 kilo- 
meters north of Port-au-Prince, near the sulphur springs. These are all dry 
districts, with a rainfall that probably does not average more than 20 inches. 
The leaves are used for thatching the roofs of houses. The trunks are split 
and the sections of the hard outer shell are trimmed down to serve as boards 
for siding. The fruits are eaten by pigs, and are sometimes gathered for that 
purpose. The interior of the trunk is of a rather loose pithy texture and some- 
times is chewed by the wood cutters to allay thirst, but no other uses of 
the palm could be learned from the natives. The pith was found to be moist, 
but coarsely fibrous and tasteless, not sweet and succulent like that of the 
wine palm described by Plumier. The name palmiste a vin, noted by Plumier 
for the wine palm, was not heard, nor were there any indications that wine 
was made from the juice of the Pseudophoenix. Many of the natives have 
no name for the palm, or call it palmiste mal, to distinguish it from Roystonea. 
The name caychd, was learned at Passe Reine, while another informant, from 
Ennery, said chacha. 
The name cacheo is given by Martius on the authority of Heneken as 
relating to a palm that grew on dry hills in Santo Domingo, at a place called 
Guayacanes, a half-day’s journey from San Jacobo. This palm is said to have 
an abrupt spherical enlargement of the trunk at a height of 18 or 20 feet from 
the ground, the swelling about three times as thick as the trunk. The pith 
is described as fleshy, soft and sweet, like a melon. 
The use of the Pseudophoenix for building purposes no doubt would explain 
why the palms have not survived along the roads or in readily accessible 
places, but thousands can be seen on rough and craggy slopes, or in sparsely 
populated districts. The locality near Port-au-Prince is in a district that is 
distinctly drier than the region behind Gonaives, as indicated by the more 
stunted vegetation consisting largely of cacti and other spiny plants growing 
in the crevices of a very rough and jagged limestone formation. As might be 
expected under such conditions, the trunks of the Pseudophoenix appeared to 
be somewhat shorter, and with shorter internodes and inflorescences, but 
measurements of leaves showed only slight differences. The foliage is a 
somewhat darker shade of green than in the royal palm or the corozo, and 
sometimes with a slightly bluish tone, which may come from the lower sur- 
faces of the pinnae, which are grayish or silvery. 
The leaf sheaths are not fibrous, and the upper margins slope backward 
gradually upward to form the petiole. On old leaves that have shrunken in 
