sometimes for a month. When fresh it is a pleasant drink, but 

 it soon ferments and becomes intoxicating, and when distilled it 

 is called arrack, the gin of India. An account of this specimen, 

 with an illustration, appeared in the Journal for November, 1902, 

 under the title, " A New Palm for the Conservatories." Opposite 

 to the wine-palm is Pritchardia Martii, a rather rare palm from the 

 Pacific Islands. This specimen is frequently in flower and fruit. 

 Forming a part of the same group is Pseudophoenix Sargentii, for 

 a long time known only from Elliott's and Long Keys, Flor- 

 ida. From the former key it is now all but exterminated, its re- 

 moval to other points for decorative purposes and the clearing of 

 the land for pineapple culture having effected this result. It has 

 since been discovered to be quite common on several of the Ba- 

 hamas, and perhaps this is its real home, the plants on the Florida 

 keys being but distant sentinels. It is known in the Inaguas as 

 the mountain cabbage palm. This palm, which is rare in culti- 

 vation in the north, at least in specimens as large as the one un- 

 der consideration here, flowered at the Garden for the first time in 

 1903, an account of which appeared in the Journal for August 

 of that year. Near the Pseudophoenix is another Florida palm, 

 Thrinax floridana, known only from the southern part of the 

 peninsula. As it grew in the grounds of the large hotel at 

 Miama, whence the two plants in the collection here were secured, 

 its appearance was most attractive, the large masses of ivory-white 

 fruit giving it a very striking aspect. For an account of the 

 Florida palms in cultivation in the Garden collection, see the Jour- 

 nal for October of 1904. 



Near by is the cabbage palm of the West Indies, Roystonea 

 oleracea, which forms so striking a feature in the landscape of 

 these islands. Opposite to the north entrance is a group of the 

 date palms, the genus Phoenix, which in some twelve or fifteen 

 species is found in the tropical and subtropical regions of Asia 

 and Africa. The one of great commercial importance is, of 

 course, the common date palm, Phoenix dactylifera, from which 

 the well-known date is obtained. One or two specimens as yet 

 small and with no development of the trunk will'be found here. 

 In the countries where it grows the trunk sometimes attains a 



