Palms of British Guiana. 269 
The ripe fruit is greedily eaten by Indians and 
Creoles alike. A fine oil is also occasionally expressed 
from it. The Indians sometimes make the fans which 
they use to blow up their fires, of the young leaves of 
this palm, though more often of those of A. tucumoides. 
The wood has been used with fine effe6t in inlaid 
wood-work. It also is made into beautiful, but some- 
what fragile, walking-sticks. 
A. tucumoides, Drude. 
Local Name 
Arawak Awarra. 
Resembling A tucuma (under which see), but smaller 
in all its parts. 
The fruit is smoother, smaller and somewhat 
rounder (?) than in A. tucuma, with a more fibrous 
fleshy covering ; in colour a deep red-orange. Ripe 
chiefly in January and March. 
The stems are ere6t, but not so much as in A. tucuma, 
as they must necessarily diverge somewhat to make room 
for the several heads of foliage. The spines too are 
smaller, the leaves more erect. 
The male and female flowers, as in A. tucuma, are 
both on branches of the rachis. 
The plant grows, occasionally singly but more gen- 
erally in small clumps, and is found throughout the 
colony. 
The fruit is much eaten, but, being more fibrous and 
with a less amount of flesh, it is not so good as that of 
A. tucuma. Oil, of a beautiful red colour, is sometimes 
expressed from them both. The fans used by the Indians 
for blowing up their fires are plaited usually of the pinnae 
LL 2 
