The Assai Palm. 539 



swampy lakes. It is always a conspicuous object, the 

 smooth stem often rising one hundred feet, and bearing 

 enormous, spreading, fan-like leaves and clusters of egg- 

 shaped, scaly reddish fruit resembling pine - cones. The 

 epidermis of the leaves furnishes a useful fibre; the or- 

 ange pulp of the fruit is eaten by the Indians, or made 

 into a wine called "yucuta," and the farinaceous pith 

 yields a kind of sago. The Indians call it " the tree of 

 life," and say that when a man and a woman survived the 

 great deluge, they cast behind them some fruits of the 

 Miriti which produced human beings, and so the earth 

 was repeopled. M. vinifera, Mart., on the Lower Ama- 

 zons, closely resembles the Miriti. 



The M. MaHiana, Spruce, ar7nata, Mart., aculeata, H. 

 et B., iputnila, Wall., suhinermis, Spruce, and cavana, 

 Wall, are also majestic fan-leaved Palms, but differ from 

 the preceding in having the stem surrounded by whorls of 

 spines. All but the first two are confined to the Rio Ne- 

 gro. The M. gracilis, Mart., tenuis, Mart., quadripartita, 

 Spruce, and Oasiquiarensis, Spruce, are diminutive Mau- 

 ritias, and, excepting the tenuis, belong to the Rio Negro 

 region. 



§ 2. Feathery Palms. 



EuTEKPE. — The members of this genus are remarkable 

 for their neatly pinnated, pendulous leaves, and for their 

 long cylindrical leaf -sheaths (" cabbage"), which finally fall 

 away completely, leaving the stem clean and naked up to 

 the base of the lowest leaf. The most common species is 

 the E. oleracea. Mart., and the first Palm, after the Miriti, 

 which arrests the attention of the traveler. Its tall, straight, 

 slender stem, measuring from seventy-five to one hundred 

 feet, its curious " cabbage " top four feet long, and its 

 arched, plume-like foliage eight or nine feet more, trem- 

 bling in the gentlest breeze, give a peculiarly picturesque 



