POMONA COLLEGE JOURNAL 



of ECONOMIC BOTANY 



Volume II MAY 1912 Number 2 



The Palms Indigenous to Cuba, I 



ODOARDO BECCARI 

 FLORENCE, ITALY 



The palms that up to the present day are known to grow wild in Cuba and 

 in the small islands, its dependencies, amount to twenty-five species. Of these 

 only two belong to the tribe of Cocoineae, and six to that of the Arececae; the 

 greater bulk of the remaining species being furnished by the Corypheae. This 

 fact shows, I think, that the Cuban palms are derived only in very small measure 

 from the southern part of the American Continent, for there the Corypheae are 

 very scantily represented, whereas almost all the members of the Cocoineae are 

 native to South America. The Cuban Areceae, however, show affinities with 

 species or genera growing on the continental shores of the Caribbean Sea. On 

 the American Corypheae I have already published a study,* where I make it 

 evident that the Cuban palms belonging to this tribe are mostly related to and at 

 times quite identical with, species growing in Honduras, the Yucatan peninsula, 

 in Texas, and Florida. 



The most peculiar of the Cuban palms is certainly the Pritchardia rvrightii, 

 not only because of its affinity to its remote parents in Hawaii, but also on account 

 of its singular bottle-shaped stem, which is very well shown in one of the fine 

 photographs taken by Prof. C. F. Baker in Cuba. And indeed it has been the 

 desire of publishing this fine set of pictures, which so well illustrate the palms 

 inhabiting the largest island in the West Indies, the "Regina Antillarum" to use 

 the words of Grisebach, that has induced me to undertake the present study. 

 Moreover, I hope that this small contribution to the knowledge of the Palm 

 Flora of Cuba will stimulate fresh researches into, and the collecting of new 

 herbarium specimens of those species, which are as yet imperfectly known, or 

 of which the precise habitat is uncertain, as for the most part are also those 

 gathered by Wright in the east of the island.t 



*Le Palme americane dclla Tribu delle Corypheae in "Webbia" di U. Martelli. — 

 Firenze Vol. II (1907). 



fProf. Asa Gray in the Introduction to the "Plant.c Wrightianx" in Mem. .'\cad. 

 Amer. Scient. etc. N. Scr. v. VIII (1860) p. 153, gives the following information: 

 "The specimens were mainly gathered in the high country and mountains behind 

 Santiago de Cuba and Cobre (mostly within a moderate distance of Filantropia, the 



