320 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



Three vegetable forms of peculiar beauty are proper to the tropi- 

 cal zone in all parts of the globe ; Palms, Plantains or Bananas, 

 and Arborescent Ferns. It is where heat and moisture are com- 

 bined that vegetation is most vigorous, and its forms most varied ; 

 and hence South America excels the rest of the tropical world in 

 the number and beauty of her species of Palms. In Asia, this form 

 of vegetation is more rare, perhaps because a considerable part of 

 the Indian continent which was situated immediately under the equi- 

 noctial line has been broken up and covered by the sea in the course 

 of former geological revolutions. We know scarcely anything of 

 the palm trees of Africa between the Bight of Benin and the Coast 

 of Ajan; and, generally speaking, we are only acquainted, as has 

 been already remarked, with a very small number of species of 

 Palms belonging to that quarter of the globe. 



Palms afford, next to Coniferae and species of Eucalyptus, belong- 

 ing to the family of Myrtaceae, examples of the greatest loftiness of 

 stature attained by any of the members of the vegetable kingdom. 

 Of the Cabbage Palm (Areca oleracea), stems have been seen from 

 150 to 160 French (160 to 170 English) feet high. (Aug. de 

 Saint-Hilaire, Morphologic, ve'ge'tale, 1840, p. 176.) The Wax- 

 palm, our Ceroxylon andicola, discovered by us on the Andes, be- 

 tween Ibague and Carthago, on the Montana de Quindiu, attains the 

 immense height of 160 to 180 French (170 to 192 English) feet. 

 I was able to measure with exactness the prostrate trunks which had 

 been cut down and were lying in the forest. Next to the Wax- 

 palm, Oreodoxa Sancona, which we found in flower near Eoldanilla 

 in the Cauca Valley, and which affords a very hard and excellent 

 building wood, appeared to me to be the tallest of American palms. 

 The circumstance that, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of 

 fruits produced by a single Palm tree, the number of individuals 

 of each species which are found in a wild state is not very conside- 

 rable, can only be explained by the frequently abortive development 

 of the fruits (and consequent absence of seeds), and by the vora- 

 city of their numerous assailants, belonging to all classes of the 

 animal world. Yet, although I have said that the wild individuals 

 are not very numerous, there are in the basin of the Orinoco entire 

 tribes of men who live for several months of the year on the fruits 



