246 Plants Collected in Pai-aguay. 



Carnauba wax. The leaves are 7 or 8 dm. in length and about as 

 broad, split nearly to the middle into slender rays, on stout hemi- 

 spherical petioles armed with strong straight or hooked spines. 

 Flowers small, white, in large, branching panicles, the staminate 

 above and the pistillate below. Drupe ellipsoidal, pointed at the 

 base, about IJ cm. long and 1 cm. in diameter, smooth and olive 

 colored at maturity. 



This is considered with good reason one of the most valuable 

 trees in Paraguay. Not only does it furnish strong, durable tim- 

 ber and wax, but its berries are eaten by the Indians, the tender 

 vertex of the caudex makes an admirable cabbage, and its leaves 

 are employed for various purposes, such as thatching, making fans, 

 straw-braid, thread, fishing-lines, cordage, and the like. 



In flower January ; fruit April-May. 



Coperiiicia allia^ Morong, n. sp. 



Tliis palm is very similar in general appearance to C. cerifera, but is quite 

 distinct in several characters. Stem I6w, frequently not over 3 m. high, and 

 seldom reaching a height of 10 m., the diameter 15-18 cm^, clothed nearly to 

 the summit of the trunk with the bases of the old leaf stalks. The head is 

 much larger than that of C. cerifera, containing many more leaves. In the 

 inflorescence the two do not vary essentially, except that C. alba has a more 

 densely woolly tomentum on the flowers and rachis. The flowers are smaller, 

 and the floral bracts much longer and more acute. The fruit of this species 

 is obtuse at the base, that of C. cerifera distinctly pointed, in other respects 

 the same. In the wood of the two lies the principal difi"erence, and this is 

 very striking. The wood of C. cerifera has a very close, compact grain, 

 making a solid log, when first cut slighthy brown, afterwards becoming black, 

 and hence called Palma negra ; that of C. alba soft and spongy, very loose and 

 cellular in grain, and absolutely unfit for timber, white in color and hence 

 popularly known as Palma blanca. The roots of the two exhibit a structural 

 diflerence as remarkable as that of the stems. The brown wrinkly cuticle 

 of Palma negra encloses a thick, very dark colored, loosely cellular cortex, a 

 separable heart wood of parenchymatous tissue and minute, black woody 

 bundles pressed compactly together, entirely without open spaces or air-cells. 

 In Palma blanca, the cuticle is whitish in color and smooth, the cortex thick, 

 friable and yellowish in color, while the heart wood is composed of white paren- 

 chymatous tissue penetrated by many large open spaces or air-cells. Nothing 

 shows the diflference between the white and black palms more perfectly than 

 this structural dissimilarity. 



Common with no. 1073 on the banks of the Pilcomayo (1079). 

 Flower January ; fruit April-May. 



