Palms of British Guiana. 261 
but with a more dull, less transparent look. Flowers 
chiefly in November. 
This is used for the same purposes as is the last de- 
scribed species. Its split stems are used by the Indians 
to bind the blades of their knives into the handles. 
\D. setosus, Mart : 
Occurs, according to SCHOMBURGK, on the Canakoo 
mountains, flowering in January.] 
Genus XV. ASTROCARYUM. 
[" Perigone of Bactris, female flowers distant from the amentaceous 
male ones. Stamens 6 (" or more"). Ovary of Bactris : stigma 3-lobed. 
Drupe of Bactris : albumen hollow in the centre. — Trunk annulate 
prickly, rarely none ; leaves rosular at its top ; spadix simply branched : 
male flowers in the contiguous alveoles of the anient, female flowers 
either distant below them, or inserted in the rachis : spathe prickly ." 
Griesbach.] 
A. aculeatum, Meyer. 
This species, and indeed the genus, seems to have 
been founded by G. F. W. Meyer, and first published 
in his Primitiae Florae Essequeboensis* . It has, there- 
fore, a certain historical interest, as the first member 
of an important genus. The species seems to be accept- 
ed by excellent authorities, and is, therefore I presume, 
valid. At the same time, the Astrocaryums of this sec- 
tion — for A. gynacanthum, Mart :, A. Munbacca, Mart :, 
and A. plicatum, Drude, to mention only species of 
British Guiana, may be regarded as forming a different 
se6tion of the same genus — run together so closely, and 
are so hard to distinguish, that there is still a possibility 
of error in the establishment of this species. And two 
* Gottingen, 1818. p. 267. 
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