242 TlMEHRI. 
racemes of white bloom, as being the commonest 
shrub on the savannah. 
Only one species of Pal nice inhabits spontaneously 
the savannah, though a second is here and there found 
on its skirts. The latter is the carana of the Indians, 
Mauritia aculeata of botanists. I regretted very much 
that no fruit was obtainable of a plant it would be so 
desirable to introduce to cultivation ; nor could I find 
any seedlings which I might have lifted and brought 
with me. It throws up many slender stems, fiercely 
beset with woody spines which dwindle in size as 
the stem ascends till they become mere warts. The 
leaves are fan-shaped, on unarmed petioles from the 
axils of which the pinnately branched inflorescence 
springs. The other, which is common at intervals over 
the fully exposed part of the savannah, is one of the 
so-called pimplers, — a term applied by the river resi- 
dents to all the slender prickly palms, for which, in 
most cases, the Indians have no distinguishing names. 
It is a species very widely diffused over the colony, and, 
growing on rich land by the rivers, is the finest mem- 
ber of the genus in Guiana ; but on the Kaieteur savan- 
nah it presents a stunted weather-beaten, bleached, 
appearance. Specimens of this plant, gathered on the 
Corentyn river by Mr. IM THURN and myself, submitted 
to Dr. Trail, who has made a close study of Brazilian 
palms, he made the types of a new species under the 
name of Bactris leptocarpa, Trail. On the upper reach 
of the T.amaha canal which was opened last year, where 
it abounds, its panicles of red fruit when in season are a 
conspicuous feature seen among the trees from the canal. 
