ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 133 



and Echeveria), acknowledged to us that during several 

 years they had not been able to obtain these flowers for 

 examination. These difficulties sufficiently explain what 

 would have been incomprehensible to me before my voyage, 

 namely, that although during our two years' stay up to the 

 present time, we have, indeed, discovered more than 20 diffe- 

 rent species of palms, we have as yet been only able to 

 describe systematically 12. " How interesting a work might 

 be produced by a traveller in South America who should 

 occupy himself exclusively with the study of palms, and 

 should make drawings of the spathe, spadix, inflorescence, 

 and fruit, all of the size of nature !" (I wrote this many 

 years before the Brazilian travels of Martius and Spix, and 

 the admirable and excellent work of Martius on Palms.) 

 " There is considerable uniformity in the shape of the leaves 

 of palms ; they are generally either pinnate (feathery, or 

 divided like the plume of a feather) ; or else palmate or 

 palmo-digitate (of a fan-like form) ; the leaf-stalk (petiolus), 

 is in some species without spines, in others sharply toothed 

 (serrato-spinosus). The form of the leaf in Caryota urens 

 and Martinezia caryotifolia, (which we saw on the banks of 

 the Orinoco and Atabapo, and again in the Andes, at the 

 pass of Quindiu, 3000 Fr. (319? English) feet above the 

 level of the sea), is exceptional and almost unique among 

 palms, as is the form of the leaf of the Gingko among 

 trees. The port and physiognomy of palms have a grandeur 

 of character very difficult to convey by words. The stem, 

 shaft, or caudex, is generally simple and undivided, but in 

 extremely rare exceptions divides into branches in the 



