Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 



269 



I have seen in the Herbarium at Berlin a copy of the unpublished plates of 

 Plumier's Palvia dactylifera et vinifera, upon which Martins based his Euterpe ? 

 vinifera, a palm, which up to the present day had remained an enigma. The 

 accurate study hereafter reproduced, which I have made of Pseudophoenix sar- 

 gentii has, however, enabled me to recognize in Plumier's palm a typical species 

 of Pseudophoenix, which is quite distinct, however, from P. sargentii. 



From the picture, the trunk of Pseudophoenix vinifera appears considerably 

 more ventricose than that of P. sargentii; the spadix is more diffuse, and its 

 branchlets more elongate, while the fruits, although distinctly pedicellate, are all 

 represented as monospermous, but in them the traces of the other two sterile or 

 empty locules are always well reproduced; in the analyses the perianth with six 

 stamens is well shown, and in the seed, apparently somewhat enlarged, the few 

 characteristic branches of the raphe are very apparent. If to these characters we 

 add those of the spadices interfrondales, of the pinnate leaves with fascicled 

 leaflets, and the relatively long leaf sheaths, the generic position of this palm 

 appears to be positively certain. 



Evidently this palm was once common in Haiti, where it was known under 

 the native name of "Cacheo," but now it must have become very scarce or perhaps 

 it has been destroyed, in consequence of the custom of the natives of felling the 

 trees to extract the saccharine juice contained in the inflated part of its trunk, 

 from which a kind of palm wine was obtained by fermentation. 



Pseudophoenix sargentii H. Wendl. II cc. ; Rev. Hort. 1887 p. 34, et 1888 

 p. 482 et 574, f. 140, 141 ; Bull. Soc. Tosc. Ort. 1887, p. 64; Garden and 

 Forest, 1888, p. 352; Sargent, Silva N. A. v. X t. DV. Chamaephoenix 

 sargentii A. H. C. 1. c. Sargentia aricocca Wendl. 1. c. et in Bull. Soc. 

 Tosc. Ort. 1889, p. 341. Cyclospathe northropi O. F. Cook, I. c. 



This palm, which was discovered by Prof. Sargent in Florida near the eastern 

 end of Elliot's Key, is described as a tree with the general habit and appearance 

 of Oreodoxa, 6-7 m. in height, with a trunk 25-30 cm. in diameter. From the 

 figure in Gardener's Chronicle reproduced from a photograph taken in its native 

 district in Florida, the trunk appears only very slightly fusiform. The leaves are 

 said to be 1.20-1.50 m. long. An entire leaf detached from a plant cultivated at 

 Miami, forwarded to me by Mr. A. T. Hudson, is 1 m. long in the pinniferous 

 part; the petiole is very deeply channelled above and rounded beneath; the leaflets 

 are numerous on each side, very approximate in the lower part of the rachis and 

 distinctly approximate in groups of 2-3 on each side in the remainder, with vacant 

 spaces 2-4 cm. long; the leaflets are firm in texture or thinly coriaceous, green 

 above, glaucous beneath, linear-ensiform, strongly reduplicate at the base, grad- 

 ually acuminate above; the largest leaflets, those of the middle, are 45 cm. long, 

 20-25 mm. broad; those near the base shorter; the mid-costa is very slender, not 

 stronger than the secondary nerves, these are in number of 2-3 on each side of 

 it; transverse veinlets obsolete. 



The spadix is interfoliaceous, and it is described as about 1 m. in length, 

 diffuse and much branched; the secondary (or tertiary.^) branches are short, 



