STATELY PALM-TKEES. 
257 
jagua, and vadgiai, each of which forms a separate group. 
The mwrichi, or mauritia with scaly fruits, is the celebrated 
sago-tree of the Ghiaraon Indians. It has palmate leaves, 
and has no relation to the palm-trees with pinnate and 
curled leaves ; to th e jagua, which appears to be a species of 
the cocoartree ; or to the vadtjiai or cucurito, which may be 
assimilated to the fine species Oreodoxa. The cucurito, 
which is the palm most prevalent around the cataracts of 
the Atures and Maypures, is remarkable for its stateliness. 
Its leaves, or rather its palms, crown a trunk of eighty or 
One hundred feet high ; their direction is almost perpen- 
dicular when young, as well as at their full growth, the 
points only being incurvated. They look like plumes of the 
toost soft and verdant green. The cucurito, the pvrijao, the 
fruit of which resembles the apricot, the Oreodoxa regia or 
Velma real of the island of Cuba, and the ceroxylon of the 
oigh Andes, are the most majestic of all the palm-trees we 
saw in the New World. As we advance toward the tem- 
perate zone, the plants of this family decrease in size and 
beauty. What a difference between the species we have just 
'Mentioned, and the date-tree of the East, which unfor- 
tunately has become to the landscape painters of Europe the 
fype of a group of palm-trees ! 
. It is not suprising that persons who have travelled only 
jb the north of Africa, in Sicily, or in Spain, cannot conceive 
rjiat, of all large trees, the palm is the most grand and beau- 
jbful j n fomi. Incomplete analogies prevent Europeans from 
having a just idea of the aspect of the torrid zone. All the 
j'jorld knows, for instance, that this zone is embellished by 
be contrasts exhibited in the foliage of the trees, and 
Particularly by the great number of those with pinnate 
.eaves. The ash, the service-tree, the inga, the acacia of the 
, Uited States, the gleditsia, the tamarind, the mimosa, the 
j esmanthus, have all pinnate leaves, with Ibliobe more or 
a® long, slender, tough, and shining. But cau a group of 
e Jr'trees, of service-trees, or of sumach, recall the picturesque 
a ec I of tamarinds or mimosas, when the azure of the sky 
Ppears through their small, slender, and delicately pinnated 
Vea ‘ These considerations are more important than they 
at first seem. The forms of plants determine the phy- 
gnomy 0 f tuUuje . an( j thj s physiognomy influences the 
