NOTE ON SOME BRANCHING PALMS. 
It may, however, be one in the evolution ofa new type of monocoty- 
ledonous branching trees. In this sense the Doum palm would 
appear to be rather the forerunner ofa new type than the descendant 
of an old one. For among the various species of fossil palms that 
have yet been discovered, lam not aware of one that is characterized 
by a branching stem. We should however remember that, owing no 
doubt to their softer texture, far fewer species of palms have been 
found than of the harder wooded dicotyledonous trees, and possibly 
among those which have been lost is the branching type. 
Is then the abnormal branching of palms naturally single stem- 
med due to the efforts of individuals to develop a branching 
species in imitation of the Doum palm? I think not. The author of 
the article Palma in the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 
noticing the abnormal branching of palms, writes that it is 
“probably the result of some injury to the terminal bud at the 
top of the stem, in consequence of which buds sprout from below 
the apex.” This view seems to be corroborated by most of the facts 
already mentioned, notably by the disappearance of the original foliage 
crown, by the apparent identity in age of the branches, and by the 
presence of incisions for toddy, at. least in those Bombay specimens 
which I have described. These incisions, made just, at the base of 
the crown of leaves, often result in its destruction and the death of 
the tree. Often however we notice merely a distortion of the single 
‘stem at the point of incision. It may well bethat where the injury 
is greater than would merely result in a simple distortion of the axls 
of growth and yet not great enough to entirely destroy it, the young 
bud at the top of the tree divides into two, or more, and hence the 
apparent branching of the stem at the point of injury and disap- 
pearance of the original single foliage crown. 
It would therefore appear that the reduplication of the productive 
power of a tree could be artificially effected by the infliction 
of the right injury, care being of course taken to avoid such excess 
as would result in the death of the tree. Possibly too, if specimens of 
such artificially branching palms were produced in sufficiently large 
quantities over a sufficiently long period and propagated by careful 
selection, we might in time have another species of naturally branch- 
ing palms. Only in striving to arrive at this laudable result let us be 
careful we do not first destroy all our existing species, and go 
down to posterity, as the rivals in fame of the old lady who killed 
the goose that laid the goiden eggs. 
