ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 181 



quite resembles in appearance a small palm-tree. This 

 Phytelephas, of which the Indian name is Tagua, is be- 

 sides, as Kunth remarks, the only one of the Pandaneae 

 found (according to our present knowledge) in the New 

 Continent. The singular Agave-like and at the same time 

 very tall-stemmed Doryanthes excelsa of New South Wales, 

 which was first described by the acutely observing Correa 

 de Serra, is an Amaryllidea, like our low-growing Narcissuses 

 and Jonquils. 



In the Candelabra shape of plants of the Aloe form, we 

 must not confound the branches of an arborescent stem with 

 flower-stalks. It is the latter which in the American Aloe 

 (Agave Americana, Maguey de Cocuyza, which is entirely 

 wanting in Chili) as well as in the Yucca acaulis, (Maguey de 

 Cocuy) presents in the rapid and gigantic development of the 

 inflorescence a candelabrum-like arrangement of the flowers 

 which, as is well known, is but too transient a phenomenon. 

 In some arborescent Euphorbias, on the other hand, the phy- 

 siognomic effect is given by the branches and their division, 

 or by ramification properly so called. Lichtenstein, in his 

 "Reisen im sudlicheu Africa" (Th. i. S. 370), gives a vivid 

 description of the impression made upon him by the appear- 

 ance of a Euphorbia oflicinamm which he found in the 

 " Chamtoos Rivier," in the Colony of the Cape of Good 

 Hope ; the form of the tree was so symmetrical that the 

 candelabrum-like arrangement was regularly repeated on a 

 smaller scale in each of the subdivisions of the larger 

 branches up to 32 English feet high. All the branches were 

 armed with sharp spines. 



