222 TlMEHRI. 
one is a rare work, seldom coming into the market, and, 
on the few occasions on which copies are offered, selling 
for a great price ; and it is, moreover, very bulky. It is 
therefore seldom that a botanical traveller has access to 
a copy ; and never, probably, can such an one carry 
with him a copy to serve as a guide when he is 
actually under the shade of living palms. The few other 
important notices of palms are for the most part con- 
tained in papers scattered through many books and 
periodicals dealing with more general subjects. But 
if the literature of palms generally, is either so inade- 
quate, or so inaccessible for the purposes of the botani- 
cal collector, the literature of the palms of British 
Guiana is yet very far more inaccessible. Indeed the 
only notice of this subject at all worthy of mention, is 
the bare and somewhat unsatisfactory list included in 
Dr. Richard Schomburgk's general list of the flora of 
British Guiana.* The palms from that list I shall insert, 
in this paper ; but as many of the species there men- 
tioned have certainly been very inadequately deter- 
mined — owing, no doubt, to the great difficulty of the 
task — I have inserted all such as have not been recently 
re-determined between brackets. 
As regards the general arrangement of these notes, 
it will be found that the various genera are classed 
as in the latest, and recently completed, volume of 
HOOKER and Bentham'S Genera Plantarum. The 
species are arranged alphabetically in their genera. 
To further the purpose of making these notes a guide 
to future students of the palms of our colony, defini- 
* Reisen in Britisch Guiana. Leipzig 1848, Vol. iii, 
