APPENDIX. 69 



like division, for instance, in Lepicodaryum gracile, I had 

 found many slender evascular fibres among the perfect 

 vascular bundles, in the interior of the stem ; in the stems 

 which I examined I could not trace the origin of these 

 fibres, and therefore cannot say whether they were formed 

 by ramification of the vascular bundles, as in Lestiboudois' 

 stems; in any case, however, the occurrence of these 

 fibres is quite unusual, and to be regarded as an anomaly 

 in the stems of Palms, and I found none of them in the 

 Palm-stems which are met with in the shops with us, and 

 which, doubtless, belong to the same species as those 

 which Lestiboudois calls "the Palms with black fibres." 

 That the vascular bundles do not all end below in a slender 

 fibre lying beneath the rind, but that it does happen a 

 fibre becomes blended with another at its lower extre- 

 mity i. e. in tracing the fibre from below upwards, it 

 appears like a branch of another fibre I have likewise 

 mentioned; but this condition occurs only in very few 

 fibres. As to the condition of the multitude of thin, 

 lower fibres lying beneath the rind, whether they are lost 

 in the cellular tissue or blended with other fibres, I am 

 unable to say, for the solidity of the tissue in this situation 

 rendered it impossible for me to make out this point ac- 

 curately. An anastomosis of these ends of the fibres into 

 a connected reticulation (as in Yucca, Xanthorrhcea), de- 

 cidedly, I believe, does not occur ; only with the existence 

 of such would such a universal connexion of the fibres 

 with each other occur, as Lestiboudois claims for the 

 Palms. I cannot find in the Palms a connexion and 

 ramification of the upper parts of the fibres, like that 

 described by Lestiboudois, I therefore think that their 

 assumption by Lestiboudois is rather deduced from the 

 analogy of the Palm-stems with those of Yucca and Aloe, 

 than founded on actual extensive researches on the former. 

 Lestiboudois found this ramification of the fibres in a 

 high degree in Yucca, Aloe fruticosa, and especially in 

 Pandanus. When he deduced from these observations 

 the conclusion that the fibres of the Monocotyledons are 



