186 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



The fruit, as we know from the two specimens with 

 which we are all familiar, the Date and the Cocoa-nut, is 

 very varied in size and appearance. " But of all the fruits 

 of the Palm, none can be compared for beauty (as we are 

 told by Humboldt) with those of the Pirijao Palm of San 

 Fernando de Atabapo and of San Balthasar. They are oval, 

 and partly of a golden colour, partly of a purplish-red ; they 

 are mealy, without seed, two or three inches in thickness, 

 and hang in clusters like grapes from the summit of their 

 majestic Palm trunks, seventy or eighty in one bunch/' 



Since the time of the death of Linnaeus, when fifteen spe- 

 cies of Palms were all that had been described, the list has 

 increased, till it now contains no less than four hundred and 

 forty-four; as many as twenty out of which number were 

 first examined by Humboldt and Bonpland. This achieve- 

 ment can only be duly appreciated when we know the 

 almost insurmountable difficulties which must be encountered 

 before a Palm blossom can be examined, which are feelingly 

 spoken of by Humboldt in his ' Aspects of Nature/ The 

 difficulties of reaching and procuring the blossoms of Palms 

 (he tells us) are, in fact, " greater than can well be conceived. 

 Most of the Palms flower only once a year (this period near 

 the Equator is generally about the months of January and 



