334 



A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



wine-palm (CEnocarpus) — from which the flowers droop in 

 long crimson cords, with bright-green berries from dis- 

 tance to distance along their length, like an immense coral 

 tassel, flecked here and there with green, hanging from 

 the dark trunk of the tree. The mode of flowering of 

 the cocoa-nut palm, which we see everywhere though 

 it is not indigenous here, is very beautiful. The flowers 

 burst from the sheath in a long plume of soft, creamy- 

 white blossoms : such a plume is so heavy with the 

 weight of pendent flowers that it can hardly be lifted ; 

 and its effect is very striking, hanging high up on the 

 trunk, just under the green vault of leaves. I think 

 there is nothing among the characteristic features of trop- 

 ical scenery of which one forms less idea at home than 

 of the palms. Their name is legion ; the variety of their 

 forms, of their foliage, fruit, and flowers, is perfectly be- 

 wildering ; and yet, as a group, their character is unmis- 

 takable. The following extracts are taken from Mr. Agas- 

 siz's notes on palms, written during this excursion on the 

 Rio Negro. 



" The palms, as a natural group, stand out among all 

 other plants with remarkable distinctness and individuality. 

 And yet this common character, uniting them so closely as 

 a natural order, does not prevent the most striking difference 

 between various kinds of palms. As a whole, no family of 

 trees is more similar ; generically and specifically none is 

 more varied, even though other families include a greater 

 number of species. Their differences seem to me to be de- 

 termined in a great measure by the peculiar arrangement 

 of their leaves ; indeed, palms, with their colossal leaves, 

 few in number, may be considered as ornamental diagrams 

 of the primary laws according to which the leaves of all 



