336 



A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



illustration ; its leaves being disposed in pairs one above 

 another at the summit of the stem, but in such immediate 

 contact as to form a thick crown. On account of this dis- 

 position of the leaves, its appearance is totally different from 

 that of any other palm with which I am acquainted. I do 

 not know any palm in which the leaves are arranged in 

 three directions only, as in the reeds and sedges of our 

 marshes, unless it be the Jacitara (Desmonchus), whoso 

 winding slender stem, however, makes the observation un- 

 certain. An arrangement in five different directions is 

 common in all those palms which, when young, have only 

 a cluster of five fully developed leaves above the ground, 

 with a spade-like sixth leaf rising from the centre. When 

 full grown, they usually exhibit a crown of ten or fifteen 

 leaves and more, divided into tiers of five, one above the other, 

 but so close together that the whole appears like a rounded 

 head. Sometimes, however, the crown is niore open, as in 

 the Maximiliana regia (Inaja), for instance, in which the 

 stem is not very high, and the leaves, always in cycles of 

 five, spread slightly, so as to form an open vase rising from a 

 slender stem. The Assai (Euterpe edulis) has an eight- 

 leaved arrangement, and has never more than a single cycle 

 of leaves, though it may sometimes have seven leaves when 

 the first of the old cycle has dropped, before the ninth, with 

 which the new cycle begins, has opened ; or nine, if the first 

 leaf of the new cycle (the ninth in number) has opened, 

 before the first of the old cycle has dropped. These leaves, 

 of a delicate, pale green, are cut into a thousand leaflets, 

 which tremble in the lightest breeze, and tell you that the 

 air is stirring even when the heat seems breathless. A more 

 elegant and attractive diagram of the Phyllotaxis of | prob- 

 ably does not exist in nature. The common Cocoa-nut tree 



