ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 319 



" In Palms with pinnate foliage, the leaf-stalks either proceed (as 

 in the Cocoa-nut, the Date, and the Palma Real del Sinu) from the 

 dry, rough, woody part of the stem; or, as in the Palma Real de la 

 Havana (Oreodoxa regia) seen and admired by Columbus, there 

 rises upon the rough part of the stem a grass-green, smooth, thin- 

 ner shaft, like a column placed upon a column, and from this the 

 leaf-stalks spring. In fan-palms, { foliis palmatis/ the leafy crown 

 (as in the Moriche and the Palma sombrero de la Havana) often 

 rests on a previous bed of dry leaves, a circumstance which gives to 

 the tree a sombre and melancholy appearance. In some umbrella- 

 palms, the crown consists of very few leaves, which rise upwards, 

 carried on very slender petioles or foot-stalks (as in Miraguama). 



" The form and color of the fruits of Palms also offer much more 

 variety than is commonly believed in Europe. Mauritia flexuosa 

 bears egg-shaped fruits, whose scaly, brown, and shining surface, 

 gives them something of the appearance of young fir-cones. What 

 a difference between the enormous triangular cocoa-nut, the soft 

 fleshy berries of the date, and the small, hard fruits of the Corozo ! 

 But among the fruits of palms, none equal in beauty those of the 

 Pirijao (Pihiguao of S. Fernando de Atabapo and S. Balthasar) ; 

 they are egg-shaped, mealy, and usually without seeds, two or three 

 inches thick, and of a golden color, which on one side is overspread 

 with crimson; and these richly colored fruits, crowded together in a 

 bunch, like grapes, are pendent from the summits of majestic palm 

 trees." I have already spoken at p. 175, of these beautiful fruits, 

 of which there are seventy or eighty in a bunch, and which can 

 be prepared as food in a variety of ways, like plantains and po- 

 tatoes. 



In some species of Palms the flower sheath, or spathe surround- 

 ing the spadix and the flowers, opens suddenly with an audible 

 sound. Richard Schomburgk (Reisen in Britisch Guiana, th. i. s. 

 55) has, like myself, observed this phenomenon in the flowering of 

 the Oreodoxa oleracea. This first opening of the flowers of Palms, 

 accompanied by sound, recalls the vernal Dithyrambus of Pindar, 

 and the moment when, in Argive Nemea, " the first opening shoot 

 of the date-palm proclaims the arrival of balmy spring." (Cosmos, 

 bd. ii. s. 10; Eng. ed. p. 10.) 



