366 Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 



foramina are at regiilar distances in the middle of the periphery; the cavity 

 is irregularly three-lobed, 16 mm. in width in its broadest part ; the wall of the 

 shell is 3-4 mm. thick; the cavity of the only fruit I had at my disposal had 

 a general .siibcordate outline, but was empty. 



The fruiting perianth is not accrescent, and is quite explanate under the 

 fruit. (Fig. 148.) 



A. crispa grows wild in Cuba as isolated individuals. The pliotograph 

 reproduced in Fig. 147 was taken at Santiago de la-s Vegas near Havana, 

 whence Prof. Baker's sterile specimens bearing n. 4566 are derived. My 

 description, however, is ba.sed on Wright's specimens of the "Planta' cubenses" 

 bearing the n. 3223 (in Herb, de Candolle) distribut<>d under the name of A. 

 lasiospatha Mart, ex Gris. Cat. cub. 222. The native name of this palm in 

 Cuba is "Palma Corojo" (Baker). 



Figure 148. Acrocomia crispa. a, portion of an empty male flower-bearing 

 branchlet; b, a growing ovary; c, fruit as seen from its base; d, transverse 

 section of a seed. From Wright No. 3223. Fig. a, b, enlarged; c, d, natural size. 



The Acrocomia endemic in Cuba is rendered very distinct from all the 

 other species belonging to this genus, at least from those known to me, by its 

 male flowers being in pairs in each alveole, and by the alveoles not being in 

 contact with one another; in all the other species the alveoles form by their 

 ensemble a kind of honey-comb, with a single male flower in each cell and 

 with the margins of the cells more or less produced into bracteiform wings. 



From the other Acrocomia growing in the Antilles, A. aculeata (Jacq.), 

 A. crispa differs not only in the characters just now mentioned, but also in its 

 very conspicuously inflated stem and in the fact that the stem is only tem- 

 porarily covered with spines ; also by the leaves being far less spinous in every 

 part ; by the female flowers having their petals cordate-triangular and entire ; 

 by the staminal urceolum with six broad triangular lobes which, on the whole, 

 look like a second corolla ; and finally by the ovary being covered by a silvery 

 indument which is formed by very appressed scale-like branched trichomes. 



