Pomona College Journal op Economic Botany 



371 



is velutinous, but is sprinkled with a few elongate black spines. The male 

 and female flowers exactly as in the plant from Guadeloupe. Ovary hispid in 

 the usual way. Fruits 40-42 mm. in diameter. Fruiting perianth with erenu- 

 late petals. 



Grenada : Eggers n. 6302 in Herb. Berol. From near sea level to about 

 180 m. elevation between Goyave and Grand Pauvre. "Grou-Grou" inc. The 

 specimens consist of flowering branchlets, portion of the leaves and detached 

 spines of the trunk ; everything as in the plants of Porto Rico. 



BACTRIS Mart. 



Bactris plumeriana Mart. Palm. Orbign. 64, and Hist. nat. Palm. HI, 280; 

 Griseb. PI. Wright, 531, and Cat. plant Cub., 222; Sauv. Fl. Cub., 153, 

 n. 2390. 



A small tree apparently forming small thickets, with stem 8-10 em. in 

 diameter and 4-6 m. high, densely covered with very rigid, slender, unequal 

 spines, 10-15 cm. long or less. 



Leaves conspicuously interruptedly pinnate. Petiole rather elongate, 

 armed densely with very irregular needle-like black spiculae ; leaflets numerous, 

 approximate in groups of three to nine, about 1 cm. apart in each group, with 

 rather long vacant spaces between the groups ; they are firmly papyraceous of 

 about the same color on both surfaces, inserted at an angle of about 45°, and 

 all in one plane ; the intermediate leaflets are 55-60 cm. long, 20-23 mm. broad, 

 linear-ensiform, quite straight, somewhat narrowing to a rather acute base; 

 here their margins are strongly reduplicate, but otherwise they have the blade 

 flat, very gradually acuminate above to an unsymmetrical apex, the upper 

 margin being prolonged 2-5 cm. beyond the lower one; the apex appears 

 therefore two-toothed, but with one of the teeth linear, 2-3 cm. long, and the 

 other very short and obtuse ; on the upper surface the mid-costa is prominent, 

 acute, and irregularly armed with a few distant black, stiff, subspiny bristles 

 (5-8 mm. long) ; on the under surface the mid-costa is slender, and minutely 

 hairy throughout, sometimes, however, inconspicuously; the secondary nerves 

 are in number 3-4 on each side of the mid-costa; the tertiary nerves are 

 numerous and sharp and render both surfaces, but especially the lower one, 

 conspicuously longitudinally striate ; in addition on these under surface nerves 

 are aligned innumerable, extremely minute, hair-like squamules, frequently of 

 a rusty color ; the margins are acute, rendered irregularly and remotely ciliate 

 by subspiny bristles, similar to those of the mid-costa. The raehis is rusty- 

 furfuraceous, and rather densely armed all round with unequal, black, and 

 very slender, spiculae of which the largest are 3-4 cm. long. 



The spadices are 25-40 cm. long, arched, and have two persistent coriaceous 

 spathes, of which the outer is short, 8-12 cm. long, oblong, strongly flattened, 

 hairy-hispid externally, broadly and acutely two-edged, or with a wing-like 

 expansion at each side ; the inner spathe is 3-5 times as long as the outer, and 

 it broadens from a narrow sheathing base into a spathulate-cymbiform limb, 

 4-5 cm. broad, and ending in an acuminate tip ; this spathe is thinly coriaceous 

 but of a rather brittle texture, glossy and cinnamon-brown inside, externally it 



