Beccari and Rock — Prifchardia. 45 



the remains of the tube of the corolla and of the stamina! ring, short, and incon- 

 spicuous. 



Habitat. — This is certainly the Prifchardia which Hillebrand believed to 

 correspond to Gaudichaud's Livistona Marfii. and which he collected on Oahu; and 

 probably to it belongs a specimen with flowers in his herbarium in Berlin, bearing 

 on the label the note: "Palolo, Oahu (large seed) Hillebr. INIarch 1870." But 

 it is not unlikely that now P. macrocarpa has disappeared as a wild growing 

 plant, owing to the great changes A\'hich occurred in recent times in the vicinity 

 of Honolulu. Professor Rock, who has verv assiduouslv explored the country 

 around TTonolulu. informs me that he has never found this palm in a wild condi- 

 tion, but that a number of these trees are cultivated in Honolulu, and he has 

 actually procured me complete specimens of leaves, flowers, and fruits from one 

 plant (No. 12763 and 14076) PTowihg in the vard of Dr. Hillebrand's old resi- 

 dence in Honolulu. It is therefore obvious that P. macrocarpa was one of the 

 species known to Hillebrand and probably the author of the "Flora of the 

 Hawaiian Islands" (published in 1888) is speaking of it when he writes, under 

 the heading of P. Martii: "In Nuuanu (one of the valleys a few miles west of 

 Honolulu) until recent times two clumps could be seen from the upper part of 

 the valley, one was completely exterminated when the natives found that the 

 trees were ^•aluable to amateurs of gardening in Honolulu, the other owes its 

 preservation to the absolute inaccessibility of the cliff on which it stands." 



It is not surprising that this palm has been introduced b}^ Linden into 

 Europe, it being easy to obtain its fruits from the individuals culti^'ated in 

 Honolulu. 



Observations. — I have accepted the name of P. macrocarpa for this fine 

 pahii, although no description of it has hitherto been given, except of its fruit, 

 which was said to be of the size of a walnut. The Avoodcut, however, in the 

 "Illustration Horticole," reproduces a young sterile plant, which agrees pretty 

 well with a photograph (transmitted to me by Professor Rock) of the specimen 

 growing in Dr. Hillebrand's old grounds. This specimen, producing bunches of 

 large fruits, must be considered as the type of Pr. macrocarpa as understood by 

 me. Probablv in several gardens Pr. macrocarpa is reckoned erroneously as the 

 true P. Martii, but the type specimen of the latter preserved in the Herbarium 

 Webb at Florence, shows the lower surface of the leaves clothed with the peculiar 

 coating of which I have given a figure in "\A'ebbia,"' III. t. XXXVUI. f. 15, 

 whereas in Pr. macrocarpa that surface looks glabrous; in fact, it is minutely 

 dotted with small incr)nspicuous lepidia. 



In Hillebrand's description of his Pr. Martii (which as to the fruit corre- 

 sponds to P. macrocarpa) the leaves are said to be glaucescent below, but that is 

 the main characteristic of Pr. HiUcbrandi. and it also shows how confused the 



