Palms of British Guiana. 257 
Certain specimens of, as I thought, one small palm 
which we gathered on the Corentyn and sent to Kew were 
pronounced by Professor Trail to be " B. mitis, Mart: 
and B. simplicifrons, Mart : (with its varieties) inter- 
mixed." Not having MARTIUS' published description for 
reference, I am, therefore, unable to distinguish between 
the two. The following notes were made on the two 
species while I regarded them as varying forms of the same. 
Fruit-bearing plants differ in height from 2 to (rarely) 
6 ft. ; the stem is very slender, somewhat stouter than a 
goose-quill. Leaves, sparsely clothing the stem, some- 
times simple, sometimes pinnate — the two forms some- 
times occurring on one plant. The bases of the leaf- 
stalks of the younger leaves have a very few, small and 
weak, black spines ; otherwise the plant is unarmed. 
Fruits roundish, smooth, orange-red ; borne on a simple 
spadix 2-3 inch long. Flowers in November. The 
plant grows, scattered singly or, at most, a very few at a 
time, among the very various plants which somewhat 
sparsely occupy sand reefs in the forest. 
As regards the above description, it may be as well to 
point out that I am quite certain that, as I have stated in 
it, simple and pinnate leaves occur on one and the same 
plant ; and that if any distinction between the two 
species here confused was based by MARTIUS on the 
respectively simple or pinnate characters of the leaves, 
this is untenable.* 
SCHOMBURGK'S account of B. mitis, Mart: is that it 
occurs in the Canakoo and Tooarootoo mountains, and 
flowers in December. He thus overlooks the fact that the 
* Mr. Jenman assures me that a truly and uniformly pinnate form 
is common at the Kaieteur. 
