1889.] BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 223 



my room averaged from November i to the middle of April 

 8o° night and day, and sometimes rose to nearly ioo°, while 

 in the sun out of doors it easily marked i io°. Even now (July) 

 in the month corresponding to our January, it stands much of 

 the time at 65 and 68°, and has only occasionally fallen as 

 low as 40 . Land that rarely knows a slight frost, in which 

 stoves are nearly unknown, where the windows are generally 

 without glass, where the country people sleep and almost lit- 

 erally live out of doors ; land of the most delicious atmos- 

 phere to one who likes warmth as well as I do ; where rheu- 

 matism, neuralgia, consumption and their kindred diseases 

 seldom occur ; land that for these very reasons possesses a 

 rich and varied vegetation, it is necessarily a land full of sur- 

 prises and of rare interest 1o a botanist from a colder climate. 

 Around him, with trunks tall and straight as a column, and 

 with their graceful, drooping fronds rustling in the slightest 

 breeze, stand several species of that monarch of the floral 

 world, the palm. The most common species about Asuncion, 

 popularly called the » Coco" or " Pindo," is the Cocosaus- 

 tralis, which rises to the height of thirty or forty feet. This 

 tree bears a true cocoa-nut, about the size of a marble, an 

 inch and a half in diameter. I could hardly believe it to be 



a cocoa-nut 



until I split one of the fruits in two and ate the 

 contents. The meat is as good as that of its larger brothers 

 for aught that I can see. It yields an excellent oil, and is 

 often here ground and pressed in mills for that purpose. 1 he 

 foliage furnishes a very good fodder for cattle, and is occa- 

 sionally used for thatching roofs. No boys, however, would 

 venture to climb the tree in order to get the fruit, tor the 

 trunk is armed over its whole length with long, sharp thorns, 

 some of them at least five inches in length wounds from 

 which are said to fester in the flesh. Two other species of 

 the palm are common in Paraguay, the Cocos sclerocarpa. 

 similar to the Pindo, but with a smooth trunk, and a smaller- 

 sized tree which has nearly erect, fan-shaped leaves, and 

 bears a large panicle of small berries (Livistonap. Across 

 the river Paraguay, in the territory known as the Oran 

 Chaco," another and a very different species, known as the 

 "Palma negra" {Cofemicia ccrifera Mart ) is very abundant. 

 Its wood is exceedingly hard and durable and much used 

 for building purposes The fruit of this palm is a large clus- 

 ter of one-leeded berries, and its long roots furnish Carnau- 



ba, a well-known drug of commerce. 



Another thing in this vicinity which reminds one that he is 



