352 Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 



siders the Euterpe oleracea as the type of the Genus, and makes of it a Catis 

 martiana. 



For my part I maintain that ^lartius has correctly referred his E. oleracea 

 to the Genus Euterpe of Gaertner, hut I consider that species to be specifically 

 distinct from E. glohosa Gaertner. ^loreover, I think it quite certain that 

 Gaertner 's Euterpe glohosa corresponds to the species of this genus very 

 widely distributed in the Greater and Lesser Antilles, and known under several 

 other more recent names. The only character in Gaertner's description appar- 

 ently not corresponding to this identification is the "bacca cum brevi acumine", 

 but it is precisely this circumstance that supports me in the belief that the said 

 Plate IX, f. 3, represents the Euterpe so common in the Antilles and not 

 another of the more diffuse Brazilian species, because these have the remains 

 of the stigmas very plainly apparent on one side of the fruit ; whereas in the 

 AnWWQ&U' Euterpe, when the fruit is deprived of the perianth (as in the fruit 

 represented by Gaertner) these remains may appear just like a small apical 

 acumen. 



To Euterpe glohosa, T think, also, referable the Acrista monticola 0. F. 

 Cook, as I have not been able to discover any diagnostic character by which it 

 may be distinguished from the common Euterpe, so largely diffused in all the 

 Antilles. In conclusion, according to my views, the genus Euterpe remains 

 as understood by ^Martins. Scheffer, Rentham et Hooker, Dnide, Barbosa-Rod- 

 rigues, etc.. Catis and Acrista being synonyms. 



I have, however, to observe that the genus Etiterpe is not perfectly 

 homogeneous, as some of the species described under this name have fruits with 

 ruminate albumen, while the fruits of others have homogeneous albumen. The 

 true Exiterpes must be considered those which, like the type {E. glohosa), have 

 a seed with a ruminate albumen. E. oleracea Mart. (H. n. Pal. t. 29, 30) and 

 E. acuminata (Willd.) Wendl. belong, also, to this group. Among tho.se known 

 to me, E. edulis ]\rart. (1. c. t. 32), E. praecatoria Mart, and E. catinga Wall, 

 have a non-ruminate seed, and for these I propose the name Euterpopsis as 

 a subgenus. I have not, however, discovered in the flowers of the species of 

 the two groups any correlative characters by the help of which, when the fruits 

 are not available, it may be decided to which of the two groups a given species 

 belongs. Barbosa-Rodrigues (Contr. Jard. Bot. Rio de Jan. 1 (1901), p. 11, and 

 Sertum Palm. p. 37) has divided the genus Euterpe into two sections: those 

 with simply bilobed primordial leaves, and those having these leaves radiately 

 divided. This certainly is not a very practical division for herbarium work, 

 but I would observe that E. oleracea and E. glohosa, which have a ruminate 

 seed (true Euterpe) certainly produce a bilobed primordial leaf; while E. 

 praecatoria and E. catinga {Euterpopsis) , which have homogeneously album- 

 inate seed, have, according to Barbosa-Rodrigues, radiately-sect primordial 

 kaves.* There is, therefore, apparently a correlation between the nature of 



•I must warn the reader that in the "Sertum Palmarum" by Barbosa-Rodrigues and in 

 his Contr. 1. c. I, E. edulis corresponds to E. oleracea Mart., and vice versa E. oleracea to E. 

 edulis Mart, as the author himself acknowledges in Contr. IV, 115. 



