364 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. A'AX 



shining, with fleshy niesocarp, usually f inch long and | inch 

 broad, surmounted by the permanent, setiform, 1-| inch long 

 style. Seed ovate-ellipsoid, equally rounded at the two extremi- 

 ties, no incavation on the side of the raphe. 



Sometimes two carpels are developed and in this case the fruits 

 are a little asymmetrical. 



Habitat. — The exact locality of the original home of this species 

 is still doubtful. 



Parish, who made a special study of the history of this species,, 

 tries to give an answer to the cjuestion : " What precisely was the 

 palm variously known to gardeners and seed-dealers as Brahea 

 /ilifera or Pritchardia filmnentosa, and to which Wendland gave 

 the name Wasliingtonia fiUfera, and whence came it ? " 



" Wendland had before him a few young trees which had been 

 grown in the palm hoiises of Linden in Ghent, It seems certain 

 that the seeds were brought to Europe by Roezl. They purported 

 to have been collected in Arizona, near the Colorado River, and 

 Fenzi (1876) even gives latitude and longitude, which would locate 

 the parent trees in the neighbourhood of Prescott, Arizona, a 

 region rather of pines than of palms. 



" It appears . . . that the only opportunity which Roezl had 

 of procuring seeds of Washingtonia was during his visit to San 

 Diego, in December 1869. The notes, however, contain no 

 reference to this palm. But a visit to any of its desert habitats 

 would certainly have been an experience far notable to have failed 

 of record. Nor is it probable that his visit to San Diego, so short 

 and so diligently occupied in collecting, could have afforded time 

 for the difficult journey to the desert. The vague and confused 

 habitat assigned to the palm is itself a sufficient evidence that the 

 collector, from whom the information must have come, could never 

 have visited a n&tive grove. It is safe to conclude that the seeds 

 he sent to Etirope came from some of the older cultivated trees at 

 San Diego, and that his pardonable ignorance of local geography 

 prevented him from correctly understanding what was told him of 

 the location of the indigenous groves."^ 



■ ^ For further information cf. Parish S. B., Roezl and the type of 

 Wasliinfjtonia, in Bot. Gaz, vol. 4S (19 '9), 4i3?. 



