342 Dr. E. P. Wright on Lodoicea secliellarum. 



the palm. This M. de Quincy was the last administrator of 

 the king of France. He was then named military commandant 

 and civil agent for the French republic ; and having in May 

 1794 surrendered to the summons of Capt. Newcome, of H.M. 

 frigate ^ Orpheus,' he was appointed acting commissioner to 

 the English government, which position he occupied at his 

 death. He is buried on the summit of a little knoll not ten 

 minutes' walk from Government House ; and by his tomb, of 

 white coral, the English flag is hoisted on all holidays and 

 fete-days throughout the year. 



Some few years more elapsed until Mr. Telfair, a gentleman 

 well known in connexion with the botany of the Mauritius, 

 obtained specimens of the male and female fruit, and forwarded 

 them to Sir W. J. Hooker, then Regius Professor of Botany in 

 the University of Glasgow, whose account, in the first volume 

 of the new series of Curtis's ^ Botanical Magazine ' (1827), 

 leaves very little indeed to be added to the general description 

 of the palm (plates 2734-2738). 



Since then. Dr. Barnard and my friend Mr. Swinburn 

 Ward have published contributions to the history of the 

 palm. 



We landed on the eastern side of Praslin; and while the 

 seine-net was being dragged to provide us with some fish for 

 breakfast, I walked to the place where I had seen the Lodoicea. 

 Passing along by the sea-side, I found the sandy beach strewed 



with innumerable flowers oi Barringtonia ?; fringing the 



sea, and in many places growing in it, was a species of Scce- 

 vola. The double-cocoanut trees were all male plants ; the 

 ground at their feet was covered with the remains of the long 

 catkins, crumbling into dust when touched. The trees ap- 

 peared to grow almost out of the rock, and the little earth seen 

 near the roots was a tenacious yellow clay. Two, and some- 

 times three, leaves hung suspended from the stem. In the dis- 

 tance, along the coast and up the mountains' side, I saw other 

 specimens ; but they were but thinly scattered along this 

 eastern side of Praslin. I had, however, other and better op- 

 portunities of seeing and examining much finer specimens 

 than are to be met with on this side of Praslin, and I hope, in 

 a small work which I am at present engaged in writing, to 

 give an account at some length of the Lodoicea^ and to accom- 

 pany the chapter on this subject with a figure thereof from a 

 photograph, and with illustrations of the ripe nut and sections 

 of the stems of both young and old trees. In these notes I 

 purpose only to give, as briefly as possible, an account of the 

 Lodoicea-ioYQ^i^ of Praslin and Curieuse, to state the facts that 

 I have collected that bear on the question of the age of the 



