DwAKF Palms. 545 



bliug Old World Palms. The trunk is from six to eight 

 feet high, and spiny ; the leaf-stalks are about twelve feet 

 long ; and the fruit is a lai'ge, oblong drupe. It belongs 

 to the ygaypos, on the lower part of the Amazons. 



Bactris. — These prickly, dwarf Palms form, along with 

 the Geonomas, a considerable portion of the imdergrowth 

 in recent forests. The leaf-points are tipped with a pencil, 

 and the peduncle of the spadix bursts through the middle 

 of the leaf-sheath. B. Negrensis, Spruce, growing about 

 the mouth of the Negro, has a smooth stem a yard high, 

 distantly ringed, and about five simple bifurcated lea\es. 

 jB. marajd, Mart, bears an edible fruit with acid flavor. 

 A smaller species, B. tenuis, "Wall., called "Peuririma" 

 or "Maraja-i," occurs on the Lower Amazons and Bio Ne- 

 gro. The stem is from six to twelve feet high and less 

 than an inch in diameter, and the four pairs of pinnae are 

 not equally distant. £. bifida, Mart., or " Bussu-rana," has 

 a spiny stem ten feet high, bearing numerous simple forked 

 leaves three feet long by one in width, with petioles cov- 

 ered with prickles. It is found on the Negro. B. jiaccosa, 

 Spruce, in the woods near Santarem, has a prickly stem 

 four feet high, and leaves two and a half feet long, with 

 about ten pairs of pinnae. B. bidentula. Spruce, about 

 Manaos, grows in clusters of three or four stems from ten 

 to fifteen feet high, an inch in diameter, and spiny ; and 

 its leaves are nearly five feet long, with thirty -three pairs 

 of pinnae. B. hylophila. Spruce, growing near the mouth 

 of the Negro, is of the same height as the last, but more 

 slender ; its leaves are only a yard long, and have fifteen 

 pairs of pinnte, the longest eleven inches long by half an 

 inch wide. Along the banks of the Avhole Amazons is 

 found B. C(9«cm7?a, Mart., growing in cliisters, from ten to 

 fourteen feet high and three-quarters of an inch in diam- 

 eter, generally nodding, and thorny ; its leaves, five feet 

 2M 



