POMONA COLLEGE JOURNAL 



of ECONOMIC BOTANY 



Volume II DECEMBER 1912 Number 4 



The Palms Indigenous to Cuba 11* 



ODOARDO BECCARI 

 FLORENCE, ITALY 



EUTERPE Gaertn. 

 Gaertn. Fruct. et Sem. I, p. 24 (excl. cit Rumphii) t. IX f. 3 (E. 

 globosa) Mart. Hist. nat. Palm. II, p. 28. Catis Cook in Bull. Torrey Bot. 

 Club, 1901, p. 556. Acrista Cook 1. c. 1901, p. 555, and 1904, p. 353. Prestoea 

 Hook f. in Benth. et Hook. Gen. pi. Ill, p. 899 (partim?). 



The generic name Euterpe was first proposed by Gaertner (De fructibus 

 et seminum, Vol. I 1878, p. 24) for two palms, E. globosa and E. pisifera, 

 evidently not congeneric, according to our modern views. Of th«se the fruits 

 were figured in Plate IX. Later, in Vol. II (1791), Plate CXXXIX, was 

 figured the fruit of the E. pisifera, which is in fact a palm quite different from 

 the other two ; nevertheless E. globosa must be considered as the type of the 

 Genus Euterpe as being the first so named. 



Martins (Hist. nat. Palm. II, p. 28) made use of the generic name Euterpe 

 for another palm {E. oleracea) which had a fruit so similar to that figured 

 by Gaertner for E. globosa that he, evidently suspecting th« identity of his 

 plant with that of Gaertner, added, doubtfully, however, to his own diagnosis, 

 the synonym of E. globosa. 



Bentham and Hooker (Genera plantarum, III, p. 896) have apparently 

 considered as the type of the Genus Euterpe the second species figured by 

 Gaertner, the E. pisifera; but in this I recognize now, with scarcely a shade 

 of doubt, the Heterospatha data Scheff., a palm common in the Moluccas and 

 the Philippines, and in the E. pisifera B. the Dictyosperma rubra, of which 

 Gaertner received the fruits from Hermann, who also sent him those of 

 Hyoplwrbe indica, another palm inhabiting the same region with Dictyosperma 

 rubra. 



Blume, Miquel, and Martins, in considering E. globosa Gaertner as corre- 

 sponding to Calyptrocalyx spicata, had regard only to the quotation of Rumph : 

 Pinanga silvestris globosa (Herb. amb. I, p. 38, t. 5 f. 1 A), not to the figure 

 of the fruit given in Gaertner 's Plate IX. t Mr. Cook, however, holds this 

 identification to be certain and says that "The name Euterpe has no true place 

 in American botany, having been proposed originally for an unrelated East 

 Indian palm." Accordingly, he calls the American Euterpes, Catis, and con- 



*The first part of this monograph appeared in this Journal in May, 1912. 

 +Martius 1. c. on this regard writes: Euterpe ylohoaa Gaertn. Kruct. I p. "H^, quoad 

 Rumphii citatum, nec vero quoad fructum descriptum et t. g. illustratum. 



