584 



PALMS. 



THE PASHIUBA BAKRIGUDO. 



pendent clusters of reddish fruit ; 

 its enormous, spreading, fan-like 

 leaves cut into ribbons. Con- 

 trasted with it appears the mani- 

 caria, or the bussu, with stiff 

 entire leaves, some thirty feet 

 in length, almost upright, and 

 very close in their mode of 

 growth, and serrated all along 

 their edges. The leaves all 

 sprout from a comparatively 

 short stem. 



More curious is the raphia, 

 with plume - like leaves, some- 

 times from forty to fifty feet in 

 length, starting also from a short 

 stem- — almost from the ground. 

 Its vase-like form is peculiarly 

 graceful and symmetrical. 



Among the most curious is the 

 pashiiiba barrigudo, or bulging- 

 stemmed palm (Iriartea ventri- 

 cosa) ; which, rising on a pyramid 

 of roots for several feet, runs up 

 in a single column for some dis- 

 tance, and then swells in a curi- 

 ous spindle-form, again to assume 

 the same proportions as below, 

 till its head spreads out in several 

 fan-like branches with web- 

 shaped leaflets. The tree looks 



