Palms of British Guiana. 243 
very large trade was done in the leaves, which were cut 
and brought to the side of the Pomeroon River 
by Indians and others. Small schooners, plying along 
the river, fetched them thence and distributed them 
throughout the colony. This trade still exists, but 
under much reduced conditions. The fruit is broken 
open by the Indians, who greedily drink the milk. This 
milk is said, by the Creoles and black people, to be an 
unfailing remedy for cough and asthma. The Warraus 
make their ' fire-sticks,' with which they kindle fire by 
rubbing, from the mid-rib of the troolie leaf. The 
curious cloth-like spathes, shaped like fools-caps, are cut 
and sold as curiosities, and sometimes, it is asserted on 
rather doubtful authority, are seriously used as caps. I 
have seen the spathe also used as the bag of a landing-net 
bv Indians when fishing. 
Tribe II. LEPIDOCARYE/E. 
[" Leaves pinnate or fan-shaped, segments or divisions with the sides 
reflexed before unfolding. Spadix terminal or flowering amongst the 
leaves ; spathes many, rarely one or few. Flowers hermaphrodite, 
monoecious or dioecious. Ovary completely or incompletely 3-celled, 
3-ovuled. Fruit clothed with reflexed hard shining closely appressed 
scales ; stigmas terminal. — Armed or unarmed palms, chiefly of the old 
world." Hooker. 
Subtribe V.— MAURITIE/E. 
[" Leaves fan-shaped. Ovary completely 3-celled. — Erect palms of 
the New World." — Hooker.] 
Genus XL— LEPIDOCARYUM. 
[" Flowers polygamo-dicecious, reddish in colour, fruit a one-seeded- 
berry covered by imbricating scales, leaves flabelliform, irregularly 
split, furnished at the margin with minute prickles ; stem dwarf, a few 
feet high "] 
HH 
