398 



Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 



PRITCHARDIA 



Seem, et Wendl. in Ronpl. IX, 2C£i; X, 197, 310, t. 15; Uenth. et Hook, 

 f. Gen. pi. Ill, 928; Becc. Malesia, III, 286, et in Webbia di U. Mart., II 

 (1907), 200. Colpothrinax Oris, et Wendl. in Bot. Zeit. 1897, 147. 

 Pritchardia wrightii r.ccc. in Wchl)ia di U. Mart.. II (1%7). 203. Colpo- 

 thrinax wrightii (Iris, et W endl. in Kerch. I'alm. 241 ; Sauv. Fl. Cub. 

 n. 2382. 



This palm is sufficiently well known to botanists from the specimens 

 preserved in the principal herbaria of Europe and America, but certainly 

 very few people are acquainted with the most sinprular asjjcct it a.ssumes in 



Figure 159. Copernicia macroglossa. a, flower; b, corolla laid open; c, calyx; d, 

 bracts; f, growing ovaries; g, the same ovary cut longitudinally; h, fruit; i, 

 longitudinal section of the fruit with all parts in situ; k, seed, raphal side view; 

 1, seed cut longitudinally through the embryo. The figures of the fruit from 

 Combs No. 335; all the others from Wright No. 3969. 



its native country as is shown in the beautiful photographs taken by Prof. 

 Baker at Ilerradura near Havana. (Plates 160 and 161). Here the stems 

 of this PritcJiardia look like enormous bottles tapering into a long neck and 

 rising from among the grasses. These palms are scattered about in the 

 savannahs, where they are associated with Byrsonima crassifolia, an unbe- 

 coming crooked tree of the family Malpighiaccce, and with another, also 

 conspicuous, spindle-stemmed palm, the Oreodoxa regia. 



I have already given a detailed account of the principal characters 

 presented by the different organs of Pritchardia wrightii in the "Palme 

 Americane" ("Webbia 1. c), and I have now nothing to add to what I have 

 already said there, except some considerations in respect to the singular 

 conformation of its stem. (Figure 162). 



