PALMACEiE. 



lofty and majestic port, they are of immense importance to mankind, and more 

 especially to the inhabitants of the countries in which they grow. Their stems, 

 their leaves, and their fruits, are all applied to innumerable purposes ; affording 

 food, raiment, shelter, and supplying materials for the construction of weapons, 

 implements, and various other articles both of comfort and utility. 



They are, as Dr. Lindley observes *, very uniform in the botanical characters 

 by which they are distinguished, especially in their fleshy, colourless, six-parted 

 flowers, enclosed in spathes, their minute embryo lying in the midst of albumen 

 and remote from the hilum, and their arborescent stems with rigid, plaited or 

 pinnated, inarticulated leaves, called fronds, but their aspect and habits are 

 extremely various. Some are slender, as the reed, and of an extraordinary 

 length, — Calamus rnde?itum, the cable-cane, having been seen 500 feet long ; 

 others acquire a considerable thickness. Some grow naturally in groups, others 

 stand singly. Some, with a stem not exceeding three or four inches in diameter, 

 attain a height of 60 feet ; others, as slender in proportion, are seen 150 and 

 200 feet in height. Some delight in valleys and the banks of rivers, while others 

 present themselves in mountainous districts at very considerable elevations. 



They form a very numerous family, the species being supposed by Von Mar- 

 tius to amount to no less than one thousand. This, however, is mere conjecture, 

 as the number at present known does not exceed one hundred and seventy-five. 

 Of this number one hundred and nineteen have been found in South America, 

 forty-two in India, and fourteen in Africa. 



Palms are supposed to have existed at a very early period. In reference to 

 this opinion Dr. Lindley, in his work already quoted, remarks, that " if palms 

 were not, as some say, among the earliest plants that clothed the face of the 

 globe, none of their remains existing, mixed with the ferns and calamites of the 

 old coal formations, it is at least certain that their creation dates long before that 

 of the present Flora of the globe. But it is probable that they actually did 

 exist at the most remote periods, for the Noggerathia foliosa of Sternberg, from 

 the coal-fields of Bohemia, seem really to have been a palm. Adolphe Brong- 

 niart refers two other fossils of the same epoch to this family, and I have pro- 

 duced in the Fossil Flora proofs of their fruits being traceable in the shale of 

 the old coal formations. No one doubts that they appeared immediately after 

 the development of Cycadacece ceased in European latitudes, and that of Coniferce 

 took a more decided form ; as we find unquestionable traces of them in those 

 deposites above the plastic clay which Brongniart calls marno-charbonneux. 



The natural productions of the Palmacem are so various and important, that 

 a brief notice of some of the more remarkable species cannot but prove interest- 

 ing to those who are unacquainted with the nature and properties of this family. 



Phoenix dactylifera is a lofty palm, with leaves, when fully grown, from six 



* Natural System of Botany. 



