56 THE PALM-STEM: 



cicatrices, embrace a smaller portion of the circumference 

 of the stem, in proportion as they are situated lower 

 down upon it, so that the cicatrices only occupy a third 

 of the lower part of the stem, while the leaves at the 

 summit of the yearling- shoot completely surround it. 



I can only confirm the smallest possible part of this 

 statement. I decidedly found no change of the relative 

 position and size of the cicatrices, in the stems which I 

 examined in reference to Meneghini's statements, (the 

 largest being about twenty-seven feet high, and thirty- 

 seven centimeters in circumference at the lower part), but 

 the scars of the leaves just fallen exhibited the same pro- 

 portion to the circumference of the stem as the scars at 

 the lower part of the stem, i. e. they extended round 

 about -| to J- of the stem. Measurements, which I insti- 

 tuted on different cicatrices, showed that small variations 

 occur in the proportion of the breadth of the scar to the 

 circumference of the stem, which are not at all connected 

 with the age of the stem. Removal of the leaves from 

 the terminal bud showed, that not only is the same pro- 

 portion of the base of the leaf to the circumference of the 

 stern to be found in the leaves which are seated on the 

 conical portion of the stem, concealed in the leaf-bud, but 

 that it also holds for those leaves situated on the upper, 

 flattened surface of the axis of the bud, excepting the 

 innermost. As, on the other hand, continuing the re- 

 moval of the leaves, we approach the youngest leaflets, 

 this proportion alters, for the borders now certainly do 

 approach each other. In one bud I examined, the borders 

 of the innermost leaflet in which the lamina was distinctly 

 formed, were approached to within i of the circumference 

 of the circle ; the next leaflet appeared in the form of a 

 perfectly amplexicaul cone, about one millimeter in dia- 

 meter, at the base of which was to be seen a narrow, 

 short slit ; it had exactly the form of the cotyledon of a 

 Monocotyledonous embryo ; in the succeeding leaflet, the 

 slit formed by the borders of the leaf was again more 

 widely opened. This observation does indeed fully con- 



