316 PHYSIOGNOMY OP PLANTS. 



Oreodoxa Regia), in the immediate vicinity of the city and on the 

 public walks, adorned with snow-white blossoms. For several days 

 we offered the negro boys whom we met in the streets of Regla and 

 Guanavacoa two piastres for a single bunch of the blossoms which 

 we wanted, but in vain ! Between the tropics men are indisposed 

 to laborious exertion, unless compelled by constraint or by extreme 

 destitution. The botanists and artists of the Royal Spanish Com- 

 mission for researches in Natural History under the direction of 

 Count Jaruco y Mopor (Estevez, Boldo, Guio, and Echeveria) 

 acknowledged to us that, during several years, they had not been 

 able to obtain these flowers for examination. These difficulties suf- 

 ficiently explain what would have been incomprehensible to me 

 before my voyage, namely, that although, during our two years' stay 

 up to the present time, we have, indeed, discovered more than 20 

 different species of palms, we have as yet been only able to describe 

 systematically 12. How interesting a work might be produced by 

 a traveller in South America who should occupy himself exclusively 

 with the study of palms, and should make drawings of the spathe, 

 spadix, inflorescence, and fruit, all of the size of nature I" (I wrote 

 this many years before the Brazilian travels of Martius and Spix, 

 and the admirable and excellent work of Martius on Palms.) 

 "There is considerable uniformity in the shape of the leaves of 

 palms; they are generally either pinnate (feathery, or divided like 

 the plume of a feather) ; or else palmate or palmo-digitate (of a 

 fan-like form) : the leaf-stalk (petiolus) is in some species without 

 spines, in others sharply toothed (serrato-spinosus). The form of 

 the leaf in Caryota urens and Martinezia caryotifolia (which we saw 

 on the banks of the Orinoco and Atabapo, and again in the Andes, 

 at the pass of Quindiu, 3000 Fr. (3197 English) feet above the 

 level of the sea), is exceptional and almost unique among palms, as 

 is the form of the leaf of the Gingko among trees. The port and 

 physiognomy of palms have a grandeur of character very difficult 

 to convey by words. The stem, shaft, or caudex is generally simple 

 and undivided, but in extremely rare exceptions divides into branches 

 in the manner of the Dracaenas, as in Crucifera thebaica (the Doum- 

 palin), and Hyphaene coriacea. It is sometimes disproportionately 

 thick (as in Corozo del Sinu, our Alfonsia oleifera) ; sometimes feeble 



