ANNOTATIONS ANT) ADDITIONS. 131 



described species. In truth, the difficulty of procuring the 

 flowers of palms is greater than can readily be imagined. 

 We have felt it so much the more from having especially 

 directed our attention to Palms, Grasses, Cyperacere, Jun- 

 cacese, Cryptogamous Plants, and such other objects as have 

 been least studied hitherto. Most species of palms flower 

 only once a year, in the neighbourhood of the Equator in 

 the months of January and February. But how often is it 

 impossible for travellers to be precisely at that season in 

 places where palms are principally found. In many species 

 of palms the flowers last only so few days that one almost 

 always arrives too late, and finds the fertilization completed 

 and the male blossoms gone. Frequently only three or four 

 species of palms are found in areas of 2000 square German 

 geographical miles (3200 English geographical square 

 miles). How is it possible during the short flowering 

 season to visit the different places where palms abound : the 

 Missions on the Rio Caroni, the Morichales at the mouth of 

 the Orinoco, the valley of Caura and Erevato, the banks of 

 the Atabapo and the Eio Negro, and the side of the Duida 

 Mountain? Add to this the difficulty of reaching the 

 flowers, when, in the dense forests, or on the swampy river 

 banks, (as on the Temi and Tuamini), one sees them hanging 

 from stems above 60 feet high, and armed with formidable 

 spines. A traveller, when preparing to leave Europe on an 

 expedition in which natural history is one of his leading 

 objects, flatters himself with the thoughts of shears or curved 

 blades fastened to long poles, with which he imagines he 

 will be able to reach and cut down whatever he desires ; he 



