Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 395 



This palm is well represented in the herbaria by complete specimens, 

 but nothing is known of its general aspect and dimensions. The leaves have 

 the blades glauceseent on both surfaces and covered by a thin coating of 

 waxy matter, which in the dried specimens is easily detachable in very small, 

 narrow flakes. The elongate spadices are much branched ; the branchlets, and 

 ultimate divisions and flower-bearing spikelets are curved, scorpioid and 

 hairy. The flowers are ovoid, rather acute, and covered with appressed 

 silky hairs externally. The fruit is spherical, 13-15 mm. in diameter, 

 (Figure 155). 



Specimens of this have been gathered in Cuba by several collectors. 

 At Calicita in the District of Cienfuegos, Prov. of Santa Clara, B. Combs 

 n. 334 ; at Herradura, Prov. Pinar del Rio, Van Herman, n. 850; Wright PI. 

 Cub. n. 3216. 



Copemicia curtissii Becc. in Webbia di U. Mart., II (1907), 176. 



It differs from C. Iwspita by its flowers, which gradually narrow to a 

 sharp point and have the divisions of the corolla elongate-triangular (not 

 deltoid) and acuminate; other minor differences are mentioned in Webbia 

 1. c. (Figure 156). 



It is no doubt a second species, which substitutes in the small Isla de 

 Pinos for the more diffuse C. Iwspita of the larger island. It was established 

 on Curtiss n. 435, collected at Nueva Gerona. 



Copemicia glabrescens Wendl., nomen in Wright, PI. Cub. n. 3968; Sauv. 



Fl. Cub. n. 2366; Becc. in Webbia di U. Mart., II (1907), 170. 



In general appearance greatly resembles C. Jwspita and C. curtissii, but 

 it is easily distinguishable from both by its smaller, hairless flowers, and by 

 all the different parts of the spadix (branchlets, spathes and axes of the 

 spikelets) being, also, glabrous. 



The fruit of this species is as yet unknown. (Figure 157). 



It grows at Herradura, Prov. Pinar del Rio {Van Hermann n. 904) ; 

 Wright PI. Cub. n. 3968, without precise locality. 



Copemicia macroglossa Wendl. in Kerch. Palm. 241 ; Sauv. Fl. Cub. n. 



2368; Becc. in Webbia di U. Mart., II (1907), 177. Copemicia sp. 



Combs in Trans. Ac. Sc. St. Louis, VIII (1897), 471. 



Figure 158 gives a very fair idea of this fine and curious palm, very 

 conspicuous for its large, glaucous and robust leaves, whose blades are borne 

 upon short and robust petioles armed at the edges with large spines 

 resembling the teeth of a coarse saw. The trunk is short, stout and solitary ; 

 presumably it would remain permanently covered by its dead leaves, if these 

 were not cut off by man or burnt off by the not infrequent fires in the 

 savannahs, where this palm seems largely disseminated and where it forms 

 the most conspicuous object among coarse grasses and weeds, by the mass 

 of its beautiful glaucous leaves. The trunk remains therefore covered by 

 projecting stumps, the remains of the bases of the dead leaves. 



Several spadices shoot out from among the leaves; are .somewhat longer 

 than the latter, are very peculiar on account of their innumerable flowers 



