ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 139 



speaking, we are only acquainted, as has been already re- 

 marked, with a very small number of species of Palms be- 

 longing to that quarter of the globe. 



Palms afford, next to Conifers and species of Eucalyptus 

 belonging to the family of Myrtacese, examples of the greatest 

 loftiness of stature attained by any of the members of the 

 vegetable kingdom. Of the Cabbage Palm (Areca oleracea), 

 stems have been seen from 150 to 160 French (160 to 170 

 English) feet high. (Aug. de Saint-Hilaire, Morphologic 

 vegetale, 1840, p. 176.) The Wax-palm, our Ceroxylon 

 andicola, discovered by us on the Andes between Ibague 

 and Carthago, on the Montana de Quindiu, attains the 

 immense height of 160 to 180 French (170 to 192 English) 

 feet. I was able to measure with exactness the prostrate 

 trunks which had been cut down and were lying in the 

 forest. Next to the .Wax-palm, Oreodoxa Sancona, which 

 we found in flower near Eoldanilla in the Cauca Valley, and 

 which affords a very hard and excellent building wood, 

 appeared to me to be the tallest of American palms. The 

 circumstance that notwithstanding the enormous quantity of 

 fruits produced by a single Palm tree, the number of indi- 

 viduals of each species which are found in a wild state is 

 not very considerable, can only be explained by the fre- 

 quently abortive development of the fruits (and consequent 

 absence of seeds), and by the voracity of their numerous 

 assailants, belonging to all classes of the animal world. Yet 

 although I have said that the wild individuals are not very 

 numerous, there are in the basin of the Orinoco entire tribes 

 of men who live for several months of the year on the fruits 



