40 Zoologica: N. Y. Zoological Society [III; 3 



samara, not a pod as in most Leguminosse, and that the plants 

 grow in loose colonies, the seedlings springing up in the shade 

 about the base of the parent tree, which rises to a height of 

 40 to 60 feet, with a crown of foliage at the summit of a very 

 slender trunk. 



Further search revealed the fact that the Tachigalia is not 

 uncommon in many localities within a mile of the laboratory, 

 especially along the Puruni and Cuyuni Trails. It was also found 

 scattered through the beautiful primeval forest at Kalacoon and 

 Baracara on the right bank of the Mazaruni and in the jungle 

 behind the Penal Settlement on the opposite banks of the same 

 stream. Though the tree was often found in all the localities 

 mentioned, it is, nevertheless, rather sporadic compared with 

 many other components of the hylaea. It may also be very local 

 m British Guiana and the adjacent countries. This is indicated 

 by the fact that there seemed to be no specimens of it in the 

 herbarium of the Botanical Garden at Georgetown nor in that 

 of the Botanical Garden at Port of Spain, Trinidad, and neither 

 the botanists of those institutions nor the chief of the forestry 

 department at Georgetown had ever seen the plant. Moreover, 

 the halfbreed Indian caretaker of the Kartabo laboratory, though 

 familiar with it and its ant-inhabitants, did not know its native 

 name, notwithstanding his remarkably accurate memory for the 

 aboriginal names of most other trees of the jungle. Thus we 

 were unable to ascertain even the generic name of the Tachigalia 

 till we had gone over the works on the South American flora in 

 the library of the Arnold Arboretum. 



As Prof. Bailey will publish a detailed account of the 

 anatomical peculiarities of the tree, I may here confine myself 

 to a brief sketch of its appearance. For the purposes of this 

 study it will be advantageous to distinguish rather sharply 

 between the young, shade and large, sun forms, since their insect 

 inhabitants are, as a rule, very different. In the shade form 

 (Plate I) the Tachigalia has an extremely slender, straight 

 trunk, from about a foot to eight or twelve feet in height, with 

 long alternate, pinnate leaves coming off of it at right angles and 

 at such long intervals that even the smallest of the young plants 



