i 



333 



It is so hard, that it is difficult to drive a nail 

 into it. The leaves folded like a fan are em- 

 ployed to cover the roofs of the huts scattered 

 through the Llanos; and these roofs last more 

 than twenty years. The leaves are fixed by 

 bending the extremity of the footstalks, which 

 have been beaten beforehand between two 

 stones, so that they may bend without breaking". 



Beside the solitary trunks of this palm-tree, 

 we find dispersed here and there in the steppes 

 a few clumps, real groves f palmares), in which 

 the corypha is intermingled with a tree of the 

 proteaceous family, called chaparro by the na- 

 tives, which is a new species of rhopala *, with 

 hard and resonant leaves. The little groves of 

 rhopala are called chaparrales ; and it may be 

 supposed, that, in a vast plain, where only two 

 or three species of trees are to be found, the 

 chaparro, which affords shade, is considered as 

 a highly valuable plant. The corypha spreads 

 through the Llanos of Caraccas from Mesa de 

 Peja as far as Guayaval; farther North and 

 North-West, near Guanare and San Carlos, it's 

 place is taken by another species of the same 

 genus, with leaves alike palmate but larger. It 



* Near the embothrium, of which we found no species in 

 the New Continent. The embothriums are represented in 

 American vegetation by the genera loinatia and oreocallis, 

 See onr Nov. Genera et Species, vol. X\ 3 p. 154. 



