PALMS. 67 



grasses, and prickly creepers impede one's movements until, at 

 last, the open pine-ridge country is reached. Here, as already 

 mentioned, the tall (Scotch-looking) firs, or pines, are the more 

 striking objects, surrounded, when in clumps, by the shrubby 

 pimento-palms, with the crabboe and haha trees dotted here 

 and there. Amongst the hard, coarse grass of the pine-ridge, 

 small, low spreading shrubs are found, such as Pithecolobium 

 ligustrum and Cassia diphylla ; a few ground orchids (Hdbe- 

 naria and Stenorrhynchus), and small, yellow-flowered hypoxids. 



Of plant life in British Honduras, there is nothing which so 

 impresses the traveller as the abundance and profusion of palms, 

 which are everywhere seen. From the majestic cohune, which 

 is, par excellence, the palm of the colony, down to the small, 

 delicate chamsedoreas, there are all gradations in size, and all 

 variations of form and habit. Many, such as Bactris, are 

 gregarious ; whilst others, such as the cohune, the pimento-palm, 

 and geonomas, are restricted to certain localities, where, however, 

 they are fairly abundant. Close along the shore, the cultivated 

 coco-nut is a familiar object; but not far off, forming a dense 

 grove, and standing almost in the brackish water of a lagoon or 

 river, may be seen the bastard or salt-water pimento-palm 

 (Bactris sp.) ; along the banks of the rivers inland another and 

 a taller prickly palm is abundant, known to the colonists as 

 " Poknoboy " (Bactris horrida), which owes its local name to an 

 encounter between the woodcutters and the Spaniards, in which- 

 the former used, with considerable effect, the stems of this palm 

 as pike-handles.* 



The "bay-leaf palm," which is evidently only the young 



* This palm is sometimes known as Pork-and-dough-boy, the latter 

 being the staple diet of the mahogany-cutters ; hence pork-and-do-boy, andv 

 poknoboy. 



