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Title: Palm trees of the Amazon : and their uses
Author: Wallace, Alfred Russel
Language: English
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[Illustration:
Ford & West lith. London.
]
PALM TREES OF THE AMAZON
AND THEIR USES.
BY
ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE.
WITH FORTY-EIGHT PLATES.
LONDON:
JOHN VAN VOORST, 1 PATERNOSTER ROW.
1853.
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
PREFACE.
The materials for this work were collected during my travels on the
Amazon and its tributaries from 1848 to 1852. Though principally
occupied with the varied and interesting animal productions of the
country, I yet found time to examine and admire the wonders of vegetable
life which everywhere abounded. In the vast forests of the Amazon
valley, tropical vegetation is to be seen in all its luxuriance. Huge
trees with buttressed stems, tangled climbers of fantastic forms, and
strange parasitical plants everywhere meet the admiring gaze of the
naturalist fresh from the meadows and heaths of Europe. Everywhere too
rise the graceful Palms, true denizens of the tropics, of which they are
the most striking and characteristic feature. In the districts which I
visited they were everywhere abundant, and I soon became interested in
them, from their great variety and beauty of form and the many uses to
which they are applied. I first endeavoured to familiarize myself with
the aspect of each species and to learn to know it by its native name;
but even this was not a very easy matter, for I was often unable to see
any difference between trees which the Indians assured me were quite
distinct, and had widely different properties and uses. More close
examination, however, convinced me that external characters did exist by
which every species could be separated from those most nearly allied to
it, and I was soon pleased to find that I could distinguish one palm
from another, though barely visible above the surrounding forest, almost
as certainly as the natives themselves. I then endeavoured to define the
peculiarities of form or structure which gave to each its individual
character, and made accurate sketches and descriptions to impress them
upon my memory. These peculiarities are often very slight, though
permanent:—in the roots, the extent to which they appear above the
ground;—in the stem, the thickness, which in each species varies within
very definite limits,—the swelling of the base, the middle or the
summit,—its generally erect or curving position,—the nature of the rings
with which it is marked,—the number, direction and form of the spines or
tubercles with which it is armed;—in the leaves, the erect or drooping
position, the size and form of the leaflets, the angles which they form
with the midrib, and the proportionate size of the terminal pair, are
all important characters. The fruit spike or spadix is either erect or
drooping, either simple, forked, or many-branched; and the fruits in
closely allied species vary in size, in shape, and in colour, as well as
in the bloom, down, hairs or tubercles with which they are clothed.
In this little work careful engravings from my original drawings are
given, with a general description of each species, and a history from
personal observation of the various uses to which it is applied, and of
any other interesting particulars connected with it. Several of the
species here figured are new, and among them is the Palm which produces
the “piassába,” the coarse fibrous material of which brooms for street
sweeping are now generally made.
For the determination of the genera and species, and for that part of
the Introduction relating to the botanical characters and geographical
distribution of Palms, I am indebted to the magnificent work of Dr.
Martius. To the botanist I trust my little book may be of some use, in
giving accurate figures of many entire plants, of which he is only
acquainted with small portions, and in supplying an account of the uses
to which they are applied in the distant regions where they grow. And to
the general reader I hope it may not be uninteresting, as exhibiting a
glimpse of a wild and rude people in the lowest state of civilization,
whose existence is intimately connected with the products of the
surrounding forests, among which the plants under consideration hold so
prominent a place; and of these it is hoped the accompanying Plates will
give a more accurate idea than the stereotyped figures which often
represent the “feathery palm trees” in our popular works.
Some of the fruits of which I had no drawings, have been figured from
specimens in the Museum at Kew collected by Mr. R. Spruce, who is still
investigating the Botany of the Amazon valley.
London, October 1853.
LIST OF PLATES.
Plate
Map showing the distribution of Palms in America (_Frontispiece_) 1
Fruits of Palms, containing,
1. Raphia tædigera.
2. Mauritia flexuosa.
3. Manicaria saccifera.
4. Lepidocaryum tenue (all of the natural size) 2
5. Astrocaryum tucuma.
6. Leopoldinia pulchra.
Fruits of Palms, containing,
1. Attalea spectabilis.
2. Maximiliana regia.
3. Spathe of Maximiliana regia (reduced) 3
4. Guilielma speciosa (all of the natural size).
Leopoldinia pulchra 4
—— major 5
—— piassába 6
Euterpe oleracea 7
—— catinga 8
Œnocarpus baccába 9
—— batawa (with fruit) 10
—— batawa (with arrow and quiver) 10,
11
Iriartea exorhiza 12
Roots of an Iriartea 13
Iriartea ventricosa (with a fruit) 14
—— setigera (with fruit and Gravatana) 15
Raphia tædigera 16
Mauritia flexuosa (with a leaf) 17
—— carana 18
—— aculeata 19
—— gracilis 20
—— pumila 21
Lepidocaryum tenue 22
Geonoma multiflora (with fruit) 23
—— paniculigera 24
—— rectifolia (with fruit) 25
Manicaria saccifera (with a spathe) 26
Desmoncus macroacanthus (with a fruit) 27
Bactris pectinata (with a fruit) 28
—— —— n.s. 29
—— elatior 30
—— —— n.s. (with a leaflet) 31
—— macrocarpa (with a fruit and leaflet) 32
—— tenuis (with spadix) 33
—— simplicifrons 34
—— integrifolia 35
Guilielma speciosa (with Uaupes Indian’s house) 36
Acrocomia lasiospatha (with fruit) 37
Astrocaryum murumurú (with fruit and part of leaf) 38
—— gynacanthum 39
—— vulgare 40
—— tucuma (with young plant) 41
—— jauari 42
—— aculeatum 43
—— acaule (with spadix and fruit) 44
—— humile (with fruit) 45
Attalea speciosa 46
Maximiliana regia 47
Cocos nucifera 48
[Illustration:
Pl. II. PALM FRUITS
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
1. Raphia tædigera.
2. Mauritia flexuosa.
3. Manicaria saccifera.
4. Lepidocaryum tenue.
5. Astrocaryum tucuma.
6. Leopoldinia pulchra.
]
[Illustration:
Pl. III. PALM FRUITS.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West. Imp.
1. Attalea spectabilis.
2. Maximiliana regia.
3. Spathe of Maregia.
4. Guilielma speciosa.
5. Iriartea exorhiza.
]
PALM TREES OF THE AMAZON
AND THEIR USES.
INTRODUCTION.
Palms are endogenous or ingrowing plants, belonging to the same great
division of the Vegetable Kingdom as the Grasses, Bamboos, Lilies and
Pineapples, and not to that which contains all our English forest trees.
They are perennial, not annual like most of the above-named plants, and
probably reach a great age. Their stems are simple or very rarely
forked, slender, erect, and cylindrical, not tapering as in most other
trees; they are hardest on the outside, and are marked more or less
distinctly with scars or rings, marking the situation of the fallen
leaves.
The leaves are generally terminal, forming a bunch or head at the summit
of the tree; they are of very large size, have long petioles or
footstalks, and are alternately placed on the stem. In shape they are
pinnate or flabellate, or rarely simple, sheathing at the base, without
stipules; and they have a plicate vernation, or are folded up lengthways
before they open. The margins of the sheathing bases of the leaf-stalks
are often fibrous, and give out a variety of singular processes.
The flowers are numerous, small, symmetrical, uncoloured, or obscurely
so, six-parted, and hermaphrodite or polygamous. They are produced in a
spadix from the axils of the leaves, and are generally enclosed in a
spathe or sheath. The ovary or seed-vessel is three-celled or
three-lobed, but the fruit is generally one-seeded from abortion, and
the seed is large and albuminous with a fibrous or fleshy covering.
Palms are almost exclusively tropical plants, very few species being
found in the temperate zone, and those only in the warmer parts of it,
while the nearer we approach the equator the more numerous they become
both in species and individuals. Dr. Martius, a Prussian botanist and
traveller in South America, has published a magnificent work in three
folio volumes, entirely devoted to the Botanical history of this family
of plants. He divides the portion of the earth which produces palms into
five regions, namely,—
The North Palm Zone, extending from the northern limit of Palms to the
tropic of Cancer.
The transition North Palm Zone, from the tropic of Cancer to 10° north
latitude.
The Chief Palm Zone, from 10° north to 10° south latitude.
The transition South Palm Zone, from 10° south latitude to the tropic of
Capricorn, and
The South Palm Zone, from the tropic of Capricorn to the southern limit
of the family.
The Northern limit of Palms is, in Europe 43° of latitude, in Asia 34°,
and in America 34°.
The Southern limit is 34° in Africa, 38° in New Zealand, and 36° in
South America.
To the north of the tropic of Cancer there are 43 species of Palms
known, and to the south of the tropic of Capricorn only 13, while as we
advance from either side towards the equator the number increases, until
in the Chief Zone, between 10° north and 10° south latitude, there are
more than 300 species (see Frontispiece Map).
In the Old World, the rich islands of the Eastern Archipelago produce
the greatest number of Palms; in the New, the great valleys of the
Amazon and Orinoco on the main land, are most prolific.
In proportion to its extent, America is the most productive palm
country; for while the Old World, including Europe, Asia, Africa, and
the Eastern Archipelago, with New Holland and all the Pacific Islands,
contain 307 species, the New World or America alone has 275 different
kinds.
In the Old World the islands produce more species than the continents,
the former containing 194, while the latter have only 113.
In the New World, however, the reverse is the case, the continent there
containing 234, while the islands possess only 42 kinds of Palms.
The total number of Palms at present known is less than 600. Dr. Martius
thinks that the probable number existing on the earth may be from 1000
to 1200; though, as similar calculations have hitherto almost invariably
been proved, as our knowledge increased, to be far below the truth, it
is not unlikely that a few years may render double this number a more
probable estimate.
Palms present to our view the most graceful and picturesque, as well as
some of the most majestic forms in the vegetable kingdom. Though many of
them have a sameness of aspect, yet there is a sufficient contrast and
variety of forms to render them interesting objects in the landscape.
The stems in some species do not appear above the ground, in others they
rise to the height of 200 feet; some resemble reeds and are no thicker
than a goose quill, others swell out to the bulk of a hogshead. There
are climbing palms too, which trail their long flexible stems over trees
and shrubs, or hang in tangled festoons between them.
The trunks of some are almost perfectly smooth, others rough with
concentric rings, or clothed with a woven or hairy fibrous covering,
which binds together the sheathing bases of the fallen leaves. Many are
thickly beset with cylindrical or flat spines, often 8 or 10 inches long
and as sharp as a needle; and the fallen leaves and stems of these offer
a serious obstacle to the traveller who attempts to penetrate the
tropical forests.
The leaves are large and often gigantic, surpassing those of any other
family of plants. In some species they are 50 feet long and 8 wide;
these are pinnate or composed of numerous long narrow leaflets placed at
right angles to the midrib, but in others the leaves are entire and
undivided, and yet are 30 feet or more in length and 4 or 5 in width.
But the most remarkable form of leaf is the fan-shaped, which
characterizes a considerable number of species, and gives them such a
completely different aspect, as to render it, to ordinary observers, the
most palpable feature dividing the whole family into two distinct
groups. The Palms having fan-shaped leaves are, however, comparatively
few, being only 91 out of 582 known species.
The flowers are small and inconspicuous, generally of a white, pale
yellow or green colour, but often produced in such dense masses as to
have a striking appearance. They sometimes emit a very powerful odour,
which attracts swarms of minute insects; and a newly-burst palm spathe
may often be discovered by the buzzing cloud of small flies and beetles
which hover over it.
The fruits are generally small, when compared with the size of the
trees; the common cocoa-nut being one of the largest in the whole
family. The kernel of many is too hard to be eaten, and the outer
covering is often fibrous or woody; but in others the seeds are covered
with a pulpy or farinaceous mass, which in most cases furnishes a
grateful and nutritious food.
The purposes to which the different parts of Palms are applied are very
various, the fruit, the leaves, and the stem all having many uses in the
different species. Some of them produce valuable articles of export to
our own and other countries, but they are of far more value to the
natives of the districts where they grow, in many cases furnishing the
most important necessaries for existence.
The Cocoa-nut is known to us only as an agreeable fruit, and its fibrous
husk supplies us with matting, coir ropes, and stuffing for mattresses;
but in its native countries it serves a hundred purposes; food and drink
and oil are obtained from its fruit, hats and baskets are made of its
fibre, huts are covered with its leaves, and its leaf-stalks are applied
to a variety of uses. To us the Date is but an agreeable fruit, but to
the Arab it is the very staff of life; men and camels almost live upon
it, and on the abundance of the date harvest depends the wealth and
almost the existence of many desert tribes. It is truly indigenous to
those inhospitable wastes of burning sand, which without it would be
uninhabitable by man.
A palm tree of Africa, the _Æleis guianensis_, gives us oil and candles.
It inhabits those parts of the country where the slave trade is carried
on, and it is thought by persons best acquainted with the subject that
the extension of the trade in palm oil will be the most effectual check
to that inhuman traffic; so that a palm tree may be the means of
spreading the blessings of civilization and humanity among the
persecuted negro race.
Sago is another product of a palm, which is of comparatively little
importance to us, but in the East supplies the daily food of thousands.
In many parts of the Indian Archipelago it forms almost the entire
subsistence of the people, taking the place of rice in Asia, corn in
Europe, and maize and mandiocca in America, and is worthy to be classed
with these the most precious gifts of nature to mankind. Unlike them,
however, it is neither seed nor root, but is the wood itself, the pithy
centre of the stem, requiring scarcely any preparation to fit it for
food; and it is so abundant that a single tree often yields six hundred
pounds weight.
The canes used for chair bottoms and various other purposes, are the
stems of species of _Calamus_, slender palms which abound in the East
Indian jungles, climbing over other trees and bushes by the help of the
long hooked spines with which their leaves are armed. They sometimes
reach the enormous length of 600 or even 1000 feet, and as four millions
of them are imported into this country annually, a great number of
persons must find employment in cutting them.
A variety of species, in all parts of the world, furnish a sugary sap
from their stems or unopened spathes, which when partly fermented is the
palm wine of Africa and the Toddy of the East Indies; and a similar
beverage is procured from the _Mauritia vinifera_ and other species in
South America. Indeed, at the mouth of the Orinoco dwell a nation of
Indians whose existence depends almost entirely on a species of Palm,
supposed to be the _Mauritia flexuosa_. They build their houses elevated
on its trunks, and live principally upon its fruit and sap, with fish
from the waters around them.
Among the most singular products of palm trees are the resins and wax
produced by some species. The fruits of a species of _Calamus_ of the
Eastern Archipelago are covered with a resinous substance of a red
colour, which, in common with a similar product from some other trees,
is the Dragon’s blood of commerce, and is used as a pigment, for
varnish, and in the manufacture of tooth powder. The _Ceroxylon
andicola_, a lofty palm growing in the Andes of Bogotá, produces a
resinous wax which is secreted in its stem and used by the inhabitants
of the country for making candles and for other purposes. Again, in some
of the northern provinces of Brazil is found a palm tree called
Carnaúba, the _Copernicia cerifera_, having the underside of its leaves
covered with white wax, which has no admixture of resin, but is as pure
as that procured from our hives.
The leaves of palms, however, are applied to the greatest variety of
uses; thatch for houses, umbrellas, hats, baskets and cordage in
countless varieties are made from them, and every tropical country
possesses some species adapted to these varied purposes, which in
temperate zones are generally supplied by a very different class of
plants. The Chip, or Brazilian-grass hats, so cheap in this country, are
made from the leaves of a palm tree which grows in Cuba, whence they are
imported for the purpose: the palm is the _Chamærops argentea_; and in
Sicily an allied species, the _Chamærops humilis_ (the only European
palm), is applied in a similar manner to form hats, baskets, and a
variety of useful articles.
The papyrus of the ancient Egyptians, and the metallic plates on which
other nations wrote, were not used in India, but their place was
supplied by the leaves of palms, on whose hard and glossy surface the
characters of the Pali and Sanscrit languages were inscribed with a
metallic point. The leaves of the _Corypha taliera_ are used for this
purpose, and when strung together, form the volumes of a Hindu library.
A favourite stimulant too of the Malays is furnished by a palm. The
fruit of the _Areca catechu_ is the betelnut, which they chew with lime,
and which is their substitute for the opium of the Chinese, the tobacco
of Europeans, and the coca of the South Americans.
One of the most recent introductions into our own domestic economy is
the fibre of a palm, the Piassaba, which is now generally used for
coarse brooms and brushes; and in the valley of the Amazon, of which it
is a native, the same material is manufactured into cables, which are
cheap and very durable in the water.
We have now glanced at a few of the most important uses to which Palms
are applied, but in order to be able to appreciate how much the native
tribes of the countries where they most abound are dependent on this
noble family of plants, and how they take part in some form or other in
almost every action of the Indian’s life, we must enter into his hut and
inquire into the origin and structure of the various articles we shall
see around us.
Suppose then we visit an Indian cottage on the banks of the Rio Negro, a
great tributary of the river Amazon in South America. The main supports
of the building are trunks of some forest tree of heavy and durable
wood, but the light rafters overhead are formed by the straight
cylindrical and uniform stems of the Jará palm. The roof is thatched
with large triangular leaves, neatly arranged in regular alternate rows,
and bound to the rafters with sipós or forest creepers; the leaves are
those of the Caraná palm. The door of the house is a framework of thin
hard strips of wood neatly thatched over; it is made of the split stems
of the Pashiúba palm. In one corner stands a heavy harpoon for catching
the cow-fish; it is formed of the black wood of the _Pashiúba
barriguda_. By its side is a blowpipe ten or twelve feet long, and a
little quiver full of small poisoned arrows hangs up near it; with these
the Indian procures birds for food, or for their gay feathers, or even
brings down the wild hog or the tapir, and it is from the stem and
spines of two species of Palms that they are made. His great
bassoon-like musical instruments are made of palm stems; the cloth in
which he wraps his most valued feather ornaments is a fibrous palm
spathe, and the rude chest in which he keeps his treasures is woven from
palm leaves. His hammock, his bow-string and his fishing-line are from
the fibres of leaves which he obtains from different palm trees,
according to the qualities he requires in them,—the hammock from the
Mirití, and the bow-string and fishing-line from the Tucúm. The comb
which he wears on his head is ingeniously constructed of the hard bark
of a palm, and he makes fish hooks of the spines, or uses them to
puncture on his skin the peculiar markings of his tribe. His children
are eating the agreeable red and yellow fruit of the Pupunha or peach
palm, and from that of the Assaí he has prepared a favourite drink,
which he offers you to taste. That carefully suspended gourd contains
oil, which he has extracted from the fruit of another species; and that
long elastic plaited cylinder used for squeezing dry the mandiocca pulp
to make his bread, is made of the bark of one of the singular climbing
palms, which alone can resist for a considerable time the action of the
poisonous juice. In each of these cases a species is selected better
adapted than the rest for the peculiar purpose to which it is applied,
and often having several different uses which no other plant can serve
as well, so that some little idea may be formed of how important to the
South American Indian must be these noble trees, which supply so many
daily wants, giving him his house, his food, and his weapons.
To the lover of nature Palms offer a constant source of interest,
reminding him that he is amidst the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics,
and offering to him the realization of whatever wild and beautiful ideas
he has from childhood associated with their name.
In the equatorial regions of South America they are seldom absent.
Either delicate species flourishing in the dense shade of the virgin
forest; or lofty and massive, standing erect on the river’s banks; or on
the hill side raising their leafy crowns on airy stems above the
surrounding trees, creating, as Humboldt styles it, “a forest above a
forest;” in every situation some are to be met with as representatives
of the magnificent and regal family to which they belong.
In the following pages the genera and species are arranged in the order
adopted by Dr. Martius in his elaborate work already alluded to.
NATURAL ORDER PALMACEÆ.
Genus LEOPOLDINIA, _Martius_.
This genus is characterized by having flowers containing stamens or
pistils only, intermingled on the same spadix, and by not having a
spathe. The male flowers have six stamens and no rudiments of a stigma.
The female flowers have three sessile stigmas and rudimentary stamens.
The spadix is much branched and decomposed.
The species are trees of a moderate size without any spines or
tubercles, but remarkable for the netted fibres which spring from the
margins of the sheathing petioles, and cover the stem half way down or
sometimes even to its base. The leaves are terminal and pinnate, the
leaflets spreading out regularly in one plane. There are often three or
four spadices on a tree, bearing abundance of small flowers, and ovate
compressed fruit, the outer covering of which is fleshy.
Four species are known, and they are all found in the same limited
district near the Rio Negro, some extending to the tributaries of the
Orinoco near its source, and one being found south of the Amazon nearly
opposite the mouth of the Rio Negro. All however grow on the banks or in
the immediate vicinity of black-ater streams, which occur more
extensively in South America than in any other part of the globe. Two
species are described by Martius, one of which is here figured with two
others, which are believed to be new. They are not found more than 1000
feet above the level of the sea.
[Illustration:
Pl. IV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
LEOPOLDINIA PULCHRA. Ht. 12 Ft.
]
PLATE IV.
LEOPOLDINIA PULCHRA, _Martius_.
Jará, _Lingoa Geral_.
The Jará or Jará mirí (little Jará) is from ten to fifteen feet high.
The stem is cylindrical, erect, and about two inches in diameter. The
leaves are very regularly pinnate, about four feet long, with the
leaflets slightly drooping and the terminal pair small. The leaf-stalks
are slender and the sheathing bases are persistent, giving out from
their margins abundance of flat fibrous processes which are curiously
netted and interlaced together, clothing the stem with a firm covering
often down to the very base. At the lower part this gradually rots and
is rubbed away or falls off, leaving the stem bare. The flower-stalks or
spadices are numerous, and very large and much branched; and the fruits
are about an inch in diameter, oval and flattened, and of a pale
greenish yellow colour. The outer covering is firm and fleshy, and has a
very bitter taste.
This species is found on the banks of the Rio Negro and some of its
tributaries, from its mouth up to its source, and on the black-water
tributaries of the Orinoco. It never grows far from the water’s edge,
though generally out of reach of the floods in the wet season. It is not
known to occur beyond this very limited district.
The stem of this tree being very smooth and cylindrical, and of a
convenient length, it is much used for fencing round yards and gardens,
and in the city of Barra do Rio Negro is universally employed for such
purposes. The want of neatness out of doors, which is quite a
characteristic of the Portuguese and Indian settlers on the Amazon, is
always apparent in these fences. It is never thought worth while to cut
the poles all to one length, but they are set up just as they are
brought in from the forest; and the space between two handsome houses in
the city may often be seen filled up with a Jará railing of most
unpicturesque irregularity.
The bright green and glossy foliage of this tree also renders it
suitable for another purpose. On certain saints’ days, little altars and
green avenues are made before the principal houses in Barra, the Jará
palm being always used to construct them; and its graceful fronds
rustling in the evening breeze, fitfully reflecting the light of the wax
tapers which burn before the image of the saint, with the blazing
torches of the rustic procession, have a very pleasing effect.
The reticulate covering of the stem of this and the next species offers
a fine station for the epiphytal Orchideæ to attach themselves, and the
Jará palms are accordingly often adorned with their curious and
ornamental flowers.
Plate II. figure 6. represents a fruit of this species of the natural
size.
[Illustration:
Pl. V.
W. Fitch lith.
LEOPOLDINIA MAJOR. Ht. 25 Ft.
]
PLATE V.
LEOPOLDINIA MAJOR, n. sp.
Jará assú, _Lingoa Geral_.
The Jará assú or “greater Jará” closely resembles the last species, but
it is considerably larger. The stem is four inches in diameter and
reaches thirty feet in height. It is often much thicker at the bottom
than in the upper part, and has a greater proportion of the stem bare.
The leaves are very similar, but the spadices are larger, and the fruit
is also larger and much more abundant.
This tree occurs plentifully on the lakes and inlets of the upper Rio
Negro, but is not found at the mouth of the river like the last species.
It grows too at a lower level, being often found with a part of the stem
under water.
The Indians collect the fruit in large quantities, and by burning and
washing extract a floury substance, which they use as a substitute for
salt when they cannot procure that article. They assert positively that
the smaller species of Jará will not yield the same product; but perhaps
this may be only because the fruit is less abundant, and they do not
take the trouble to collect it.
Coarse Portugal salt is used in the Rio Negro, and among the Indians in
the upper part of the river serves as a circulating medium, about a
pound of it being reckoned equivalent to a day’s work. The supply
however is very uncertain, and there are many distant tribes which it
scarcely ever reaches; and it is among them that the substitute is
manufactured from the fruit of the Jará. It is doubtful, however,
whether it contains any true salt, for it is described as being more
bitter than saline in taste; yet with this alone to season their fish
and cassava the Indians enjoy almost perfect health. Perhaps, therefore,
mineral salt may not be such a necessary of life as we are accustomed to
consider it.
[Illustration:
Pl. VI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
LEOPOLDINIA PIASSABA. Ht. 20 Ft.
]
PLATE VI.
LEOPOLDINIA PIASSABA, n. sp.
Piassába, _Lingoa Geral_. Chíquichíqui, _Barré_. [An Indian language
spoken on the Upper Rio Negro in Venezuela.]
This tree, the “Piassaba” of Brazil and the “Chíquichíqui” of Venezuela,
I have little hesitation in referring to the genus _Leopoldinia_, though
I have never seen it in flower or in fruit. The texture and form of the
leaves, the peculiar branching of the spadix, and the extraordinary
development of the fibres from the margins of the sheathing petioles,
show it to be very closely allied to the other species of this genus.
The stem is generally short, but reaches twenty to thirty feet in
height, and is much thicker than in either of the preceding species. The
leaves are very large and regularly pinnate, with the pinnæ gradually
smaller to the end, as in the two former species. The leaflets are
rigid, broadest in the middle, and gradually tapering to a fine point,
spreading out flat on each side of the midrib, but slightly drooping at
the tips. The petioles are slender and smooth. The spadix is large,
excessively branched and drooping, and there are often several on the
same tree. The marginal processes of the petioles are interlaced as in
the two former species, and are produced into long riband-like strips,
which afterwards split into fine fibres, and hang down five or six feet,
entirely concealing the stem, and giving the tree a most curious and
unique appearance. The leaves form an excellent thatch, and are almost
universally used in that portion of Venezuela situated on the upper Rio
Negro, and the adjacent tributaries of the Orinoco. The fruit is said to
resemble that of the Jará in colour, but it is globose and eatable,
being used principally to form a thick drink by washing off the outer
coating of pulp.
The fibrous or hairy covering of the stem is an extensive article of
commerce in the countries in which it grows. It seems to have been used
by the Brazilians from a very early period to form cables for the canoes
navigating the Amazon. It is well adapted for this purpose, as it is
light (the cables made of it not sinking in water) and very durable. It
twists readily and firmly into cordage from the fibres being
rough-edged, and as it is very abundant, and is procured and
manufactured by the Indians, piassaba ropes are much cheaper than any
other kind of cordage. The price in the city of Barra in June 1852, was
400 reis or 1_s._ for 32 lbs. of the fibre, and 800 reis or 2_s._ for
every inch in circumference of a cable sixty fathoms long, which is the
standard length they are all made to.
Before the independence of Brazil, the Portuguese government had a
factory at the mouth of the Paduarí, one of the tributaries of the Rio
Negro, for the purpose of making these cables for the use of the Pará
arsenal, and as a government monopoly. Till within these few years the
fibre was all manufactured into cordage on the spot, but it is now taken
down in long conical bundles for exportation from Pará to England, where
it is generally used for street sweeping and house brooms, and will
probably soon be applied to many other purposes. It is cut with knives
by men, women and children, from the upper part of the younger trees, so
as to secure the freshest fibres, the taller trees which have only the
old and half-rotten portion within reach, being left untouched. It is
said to grow again in five or six years, the fibres being produced at
the bases of the new leaves. The trees are much infested by venomous
snakes, a species of _Craspedocephalus_, and the Indians are not
unfrequently bitten by them when at work, and sometimes with fatal
consequences.
The distribution of this tree is very peculiar. It grows in swampy or
partially flooded lands on the banks of black-water rivers. It is first
found on the river Padauarí, a tributary of the Rio Negro on its
northern side, about 400 miles above Barra, but whose waters are not so
black as those of the Rio Negro. The Piassaba is found from near the
mouth to more than a hundred miles up, where it ceases. On the banks of
the Rio Negro itself not a tree is to be seen. The next river, the
Darahá, also contains some. The next two, the Maravihá and Cababurís,
are white-water rivers, and have no Piassaba. On the S. bank, though all
the rivers are black-water, there is no Piassaba till we reach the
Marié, not far below St. Gabriel. Here it is extensively cut for about a
hundred miles up, but there is still none immediately at the mouth or on
the banks of the Rio Negro. The next rivers, the Curicuríarí, the great
river Uaupés, and the Isánna, though all black-water, have none; while
further on, in the Xié, it again appears. On entering Venezuela it is
found near the banks of the Rio Negro, and is abundant all up to its
sources, and in the Témi and Atabápo, black-water tributaries of the
Orinoco. This seems to be its northern limit, and I cannot hear of its
again appearing in any part of the Amazon or Orinoco or their
tributaries. It is thus entirely restricted to a district about 300
miles from N. to S. and an equal distance from E. to W. I am enabled so
exactly to mark out its range, from having resided more than two years
in various parts of the Rio Negro, among people whose principal
occupation consisted in obtaining the fibrous covering of this tree, and
from whom no locality for it can have remained undiscovered, assisted as
they are by the Indians, whose home is the forest, and who are almost as
well acquainted with its trackless depths as we are with the well-beaten
roads of our own island.
The fibre imported into this country has been supposed to be produced
only by the _Attalea funifera_, a species not found in the Amazon
district. In the London Journal of Botany for 1849, Sir W. Hooker gave
some account of the material, and of the tree producing it; stating that
he had received the fruit of the tree with the fibre from a mercantile
house connected with Brazil, and that the fruit was that of the _Attalea
funifera_. This species is mentioned by Martius as furnishing a fibre
used for cordage and other purposes in Southern Brazil, and he states
that it is called “piaçaba”; so that the Indian name is applied to two
distinct trees producing a similar material in different localities; and
the two having been brought to England under the same name and from not
very distant ports of the same country, were naturally supposed to be
produced by the same tree. The greater part, if not all of the Piassaba
now imported, comes, however, from the Rio Negro, where several hundred
tons are cut annually and sent to Pará, from which place scarcely a
vessel sails for England without its forming a part of her cargo.
GENUS EUTERPE, _Gærtner_.
Male and female flowers intermingled on the same spadix, the former more
abundant in the upper part of the branches, the latter in the lower.
Spathe entire, membranaceous, fusiform and deciduous. Flowers with
bracts, male with six stamens and a rudimentary pistil, female with
three sessile stigmas. Spadix simply branched, spreading horizontally.
These are very elegant palms; their stems are lofty, slender, smooth and
faintly ringed. The leaves are terminal, pinnate, regular, and form a
graceful feathery plume. The bases of the petioles are sheathing for a
long distance down the stem, forming a thick column three or four feet
long, of a green or reddish colour. The spadices, three or four in
number, spring from beneath the leaves, and the spathes are very
deciduous, falling to the ground as soon as they open. The fruit is
small, globose, at first green, then violet or black, and consists of a
thin edible pulp covering the hard seed.
Twelve species are known, inhabiting the West Indies, Mexico and South
America, and there appear to be three species in the Amazon district,
two of which I have figured. Some prefer marshy grounds near the level
of the sea, others extend up the mountains to a height of 4000 feet.
[Illustration:
Pl. VII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
EUTERPE OLERACEA. Ht. 60 Ft.
]
PLATE VII.
EUTERPE OLERACEA, _Martius_.
Assaí, _Lingoa Geral_.
The Assaí of Pará is a tall and slender tree, from sixty to eighty feet
high, and about four inches in diameter. The stem is very smooth, of a
pale colour, and generally waving, sometimes very much curved. The
leaves are of moderate size, of a pale bright green, regularly pinnate,
and with the leaflets much drooping. The column formed by the sheathing
bases of the leaves is of an olive colour. The flowers are small,
whitish, and very thickly set on the simply branched spadix. There are
generally two or three, and sometimes even five or six spadices, growing
out horizontally from a little below the leaf-column. The spathe is
smooth and membranous, and falls off as the spadix opens. The fruit when
ripe is about the size and colour of a sloe. It consists of a hard
albuminous seed, with a rather fibrous exterior, and a very thin
covering of a firm pulp or flesh.
This species is very abundant in the neighbourhood of Pará, and even in
the city itself. It grows in swamps flooded by the high tides,—never on
dry land. Its straight cylindrical stem is sometimes used for poles and
rafters; but the tree is generally considered too valuable to be cut
down for such purposes. A very favourite drink is made from the ripe
fruit, and daily vended in the streets of Pará. Indian and negro girls
may be constantly seen walking about with small earthen pots on their
heads, uttering at intervals a shrill cry of Assaí——í. If you call one
of these dusky maidens, she will set down her pot, and you will see it
filled with a thick creamy liquid, of a fine plum colour. A pennyworth
of this will fill a tumbler, and you may then add a little sugar to your
taste, and will find a peculiar nut-flavoured liquid, which you may not
perhaps think a great deal of at first; but, if you repeat your
experience a few times, you will inevitably become so fond of it as to
consider “Assaí” one of the greatest luxuries the place produces. It is
generally taken with farinha, the substitute for bread prepared from the
mandiocca root, and with or without sugar, according to the taste of the
consumer.
During our walks in the suburbs of Pará we had frequently opportunities
of seeing the preparation of this favourite beverage. Two or three large
bunches of fruit are brought in from the forest. The women of the house
seize upon them, shake and strip them into a large earthen vessel, and
pour on them warm water, not too hot to bear the hand in. The water soon
becomes tinged with purple, and in about an hour the outer pulp has
become soft enough to rub off. The water is now most of it poured away,
a little cold added, and a damsel, with no sleeves to turn up, plunges
both hands into the vessel, and rubs and kneads with great perseverance,
adding fresh water as it is required, till the whole of the purple
covering has been rubbed off and the greenish stones left bare. The
liquid is now poured through a wicker sieve into another vessel, and is
then ready for use. The smiling hostess will then fill a calabash, and
give you another with farinha to mix to your taste; and nothing will
delight her more than your emptying your rustic basin and asking her to
refill it.
The inhabitants of Pará are excessively attached to this beverage, and
many never pass a day of their lives without it. They are particularly
favoured too, in being able to get it at all seasons, for though in most
places the trees only bear for a few months once in the year, yet in the
neighbourhood of Pará there is so much variety of soil and aspect, that
within a day or two’s journey, there is always some ripe Assaí to supply
the market. Boys climb up the trees to get it, with a cord round the
ankles (as shown on the Plate), and with its own leaves make a neatly
interlaced basket to carry it home. From the great island of Marajó, its
igaripés[1] and marshes, from the rivers Guamá and Mojú, from the
thousand islands in the river, and from the vast palm swamps in the
depths of the forest, baskets of the fruit are brought every morning to
the city, where half the population look to the Assaí to supply a daily
meal, and hundreds are said to make it, with farinha, almost their main
subsistence.
Footnote 1:
A small stream, literally “path of the canoe.”
The trees of this genus also furnish another article of food. The
undeveloped leaves in the centre of the column form a white sweetish
mass, which when boiled somewhat resembles artichoke or parsnep, and is
a very good and wholesome vegetable. It may also be eaten raw, cut up
and dressed as a salad with oil and vinegar. As, however, to obtain it
the tree must be destroyed, it is not much used in Pará, except by
travellers in the forest who have no particular interest in the
preservation of the trees for fruit. The Cabbage Palm of the West Indies
is an allied species, and is used for food in the same manner.
Very fine specimens of this tree may be seen in the great Palm House at
Kew, where they grow almost as luxuriantly as in their native forests.
In the Plate, the unopened spathe, flower-spadix and fruit are
represented, as they are often found, together on the same tree.
EUTERPE ——?
On the banks of the Rio Negro there appears to be another species of
this genus, closely allied to the _Euterpe oleracea_, but the stem is
thicker and straighter, the whole tree larger, and the leaf-column
thicker, and of a clear green colour. It grows on the dry land of the
virgin forest, or sometimes within the limits of the winter’s
inundations. I unfortunately neglected to examine into its peculiar
characters, as until my return to Pará I had considered it identical
with the species so common there.
I was also informed that in the island of Marajó there is a species or
variety having white fruit, but I had no opportunity of examining it.
[Illustration:
Pl. VIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
EUTERPE CATINGA. Ht. 40 Ft.
]
PLATE VIII.
EUTERPE CATINGA, n. sp.
Assaí de catinga, _Lingoa Geral_.
This species differs from the last in its slenderer stem and less
drooping leaves and leaflets. It grows to forty or fifty feet high. The
spadices are fewer and much smaller. The fruit also is smaller, and has
more pulpy matter, so that a small quantity of it makes more of the
“vinho d’Assaí” (the Assaí wine) than the same quantity of fruit of the
larger kind. The column formed by the sheathing bases of the leaves is
smaller than in the last species, and always of a red colour. The roots
rise considerably above the ground, forming a distinct cone, which is
not the case in the _E. oleracea_. It inhabits the forests on a dry
sandy soil, of the Upper Rio Negro. These districts are called Catinga
forests by the natives, and have very peculiar vegetable productions,
differing almost entirely from those of the lofty virgin forest.
The preparation of the fruit of this species is sweeter and more finely
flavoured than that of any other, and is therefore much sought after,
but it takes the produce of four or five trees to yield as much as a
single spadix of the larger kind will often produce. I found the fruit
ripe in the month of April on the river Uaupés, a branch of the Rio
Negro above the Falls.
GENUS ŒNOCARPUS, _Martius_.
Male and female flowers on the same spadix, the former most abundant.
Spathe double, the interior complete, woody, and deciduous. Flowers
without distinct bracts; the male with six stamens and rudiments of a
pistil, the female with three sessile stigmas, but with no rudiment of
stamens.
These are tall majestic trees with large smooth stems, generally
distinctly ringed. The leaves are large, terminal, more or less
regularly pinnate, and have the bases expanded and clasping the stem,
but not forming a sheathing column as in the last genus. The spadices
spring from beneath the leaves and are simply branched; the branches are
very lax, hanging down vertically except when forced outwards by the
ripening fruit. The spathe is very large, fusiform and woody, and falls
off the moment the spadix escapes from it. The fruit is small, nearly
globular, and has an edible pulpy covering, like that of the genus
_Euterpe_.
Six species only are known, and all inhabit tropical America, where they
prefer dry, slightly elevated lands, none being known to extend more
than 1600 feet above the sea.
[Illustration:
Pl. IX.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ŒNOCARPUS BACCABA Ht. 50 Ft.
]
PLATE IX.
ŒNOCARPUS BACCÁBA, _Martius_.
Baccába, _Lingoa Geral_.
This is a smooth thick-stemmed handsome tree, faintly ringed, and
reaching fifty or sixty feet in height. The leaves are large, terminal,
and pinnate. The leaflets are long; gradually pointed, and set at equal
distances along the midrib. When young, the leaves are flat, the
leaflets or pinnæ all standing out in the same plane; but in the
full-grown tree the leaflets are in groups of two or three standing out
at different angles from the general plane of the leaf, so as to give an
irregular mixed appearance to the leaf. The petioles are greatly dilated
at the base where they clasp the stem, and have a fibrous margin. The
leaves as they die fall clean off from the stem, no part of the base
remaining. The spathe is deciduous, being comparatively seldom visible.
The fruits are of a violet or black colour when ripe, but are covered
with a dense whitish bloom. They are prepared in the same way as the
Assaí, but the pulp is of a pinkish cream-colour instead of purple, and
the liquid is more oily, and of delicious flavour, somewhat resembling
filberts and cream. It is said, however, not to be so wholesome as the
Assaí, and in districts where intermittent fevers are prevalent, to
bring them on, and to be particularly hurtful to persons recovering from
that disease. A very beautiful oil is sometimes extracted from the pulp
by pressure; it is perfectly clear, liquid, and inodorous; and serves as
a substitute for olive oil, as well as being very good for lamps. The
leaves are sometimes used for thatching when none better can be
obtained; but owing to the irregularity of the pinnæ before mentioned,
they are not much used.
This species inhabits the dry virgin forests of the Rio Negro and Upper
Amazon. In the lower parts of that river and in the neighbourhood of
Pará it is replaced by another species, the _Œnocarpus distichus_.
The _Œ. baccába_ is growing at Kew.
One figure on the Plate shows the unopened spathe; the other has
spadices with flowers and fruit.
[Illustration:
Pl. XI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ŒNOCARPUS BATAWA. Ht. 50 Ft.
]
PLATES X. and XI.
ŒNOCARPUS BATAWÁ, _Martius_.
Patawá, _Lingoa Geral_.
This species can hardly be distinguished from the _Œnocarpus baccába_
when young. In the full-grown plant, however, the leaves preserve their
regularity, the leaflets spreading out regularly in one plane and having
a very beautiful appearance. The stem in old trees is fifty or sixty
feet high and quite smooth, but in those growing in the shade of the
forest, and in all young trees, the stem is completely hidden by the
persistent bases of the decayed and fallen leaves. I have figured a tree
in this state (Plate XI.).
The sheathing bases of the petioles give out from their margins numerous
long spinous processes of a very singular character. They are from
eighteen inches to three feet long, of a black colour, flattish, and
generally broken or fibrous at the point. They are much sought after by
the Indians, who use them to make arrows for their “gravatánas” or
blow-pipes. One of these arrows is here represented with the wicker
quiver in which they are carried. They are about fifteen or eighteen
inches long, sharply pointed at the end, which is covered with “curarí”
poison for three or four inches down, and notched so as to break off in
the wound. Near the bottom a little of the soft down of the
silk-cotton-tree is twisted round into a smooth spindle-haped mass, and
carefully secured with a fibre of a “_bromelia_.” The cotton just fits
easily into the tube, offering a light resisting body for the breath to
act upon.
The fruit of this species is very similar to that of the Baccába, and is
said to be of even superior flavour.
The Patawá is found in the whole of the Amazon and Rio Negro in the
virgin forest, though apparently nowhere very abundant. Specimens are
now growing in the Palm House at Kew.
The fruit is represented on Pl. X. of the natural size.
ŒNOCARPUS MINOR, _Martius_.
Baccába miri, _Lingoa Geral_.
This is a small species common on the upper Rio Negro. The stem is not
half so thick as in the _Œ. baccába_, and the leaves are in proportion.
The fruit is also very small, but is very fleshy and fine-flavoured, and
ripens at a different time of year from the larger kind. It grows in the
dry virgin forest. My drawing of this tree was unfortunately lost on my
voyage home.
[Illustration:
Pl. X.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ŒNOCARPUS BATAWA. Ht. 60 Ft.
]
ŒNOCARPUS DISTICHUS, _Martius_.
Baccába, of Pará.
This is the species known as the Baccába at Pará, where the _Œ. baccába_
is not found. It is quite distinct from the allied species by the leaves
being distichous, or arranged nearly in one plane on each side of the
stem, which gives it a very peculiar aspect, unlike any other Palm.
On my return to Pará from the interior, I was suffering so much from
ague, as to be unable to go in search of a specimen of this tree to
figure as I had intended.
This, like all other species of the genus, grows in dry and rather
elevated forest land.
Genus IRIARTEA, _Ruiz_ et _Pavon_.
Female flowers few, interspersed among the males, bracteate. Spathe
membranous, incomplete. Male flowers with from twelve to fifty stamens
and the rudiments of a pistil. Female flowers with three sessile
stigmas.
These singular and beautiful Palms have lofty, smooth, cylindrical or
ventricose stems, very faintly ringed. The roots grow more or less above
ground. The leaves are terminal and pinnate, and the leaflets are
somewhat triangular, notched, often twisted or curled, and have
radiating nerves. The sheathing bases form a column as in _Euterpe_. The
spadices grow from beneath the leaves and are simply branched and
drooping. The spathes vary in number and size; they are membranous, and
fall off before the fruit ripens. The fruit is oval, of moderate size,
generally of a red or yellow colour, and the pulpy part is bitter and
uneatable. The stems of this genus increase in thickness within certain
limits, differing from most other palms, which, when the stem is once
formed, only increase in height.
Nine species of this genus are known, all natives of South America. Four
of them occur in the Amazon district, three in Bolivia, one in
Venezuela, and one near Bogotá, reaching a height above the sea of 5000
to 8000 feet.
[Illustration:
Pl. XII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
IRIARTEA EXORHIZA. Ht. 60 Ft.
]
PLATE XII.
IRIARTEA EXORHIZA, _Martius_.
Pashiúba, _Lingoa Geral_.
This curious and beautiful tree is common in the forests about Pará and
on the banks of the Amazon. It reaches fifty or sixty feet in height,
with the stem moderately thick and very smooth, there being scarcely any
rings or scars left by the fallen leaves.
The leaves are large and pinnate, with the leaflets triangular and very
deeply notched, standing out at different angles with the midrib. The
leaves curve over gracefully, and the character and aspect of the
foliage is very different from that of most other palms. The column
formed by the sheathing leaf-stalks is swollen at the base and of a deep
green colour.
The spadices are three or four in number, growing rather upwards from
the stem below the leaf-column. They are small and simply branched, and
bear small oval red fruits about the size of a damson, the outer pulp of
which is bitter and only eaten by some birds.
But what most strikes attention in this tree, and renders it so
peculiar, is, that the roots are almost entirely above ground. They
spring out from the stem, each one at a higher point than the last, and
extend diagonally downwards till they approach the ground, when they
often divide into many rootlets, each of which secures itself in the
soil. As fresh ones spring out from the stem, those below become rotten
and die off; and it is not an uncommon thing to see a lofty tree
supported entirely by three or four roots, so that a person may walk
erect beneath them, or stand with a tree seventy feet high growing
immediately over his head.
In the forests where these trees grow, numbers of young plants of every
age may be seen, all miniature copies of their parents, except that they
seldom possess more than three legs, which gives them a strange and
almost ludicrous appearance.
The figure on the opposite page (Plate XIII.) represents accurately the
roots of a tree which had been partly blown down in the forest of the
Upper Rio Negro. My friend Mr. Spruce informs me that it is a distinct
species from that found at Pará, though closely allied to it, and
scarcely differing in the character of the roots.
The wood of these trees is very hard on the outside, but soft and pithy
within. It splits easily and very straight, and is much used for forming
the floors of canoes, the ceilings of houses, shelves, seats, and
various other purposes. Perfectly straight laths are more readily made
from it than from any other wood, and they are so hard and durable as to
serve for fish-weirs, corals for turtles, and for harpoons. The
air-roots are covered with tubercular prickles, and are used by some
Indians to grate their mandiocca.
This species grows in swamps or marshy ground in the virgin forest, not
in the tide-flooded lands on the river banks.
Young plants may be seen in the great Palm House at Kew.
A fruit is represented on Plate III. fig. 5. of the natural size.
[Illustration:
Pl. XIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ROOTS OF AN IRIARTEA.
]
[Illustration:
Pl. XIV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
IRIARTEA VENTRICOSA. Ht. 20 Ft.
]
PLATE XIV.
IRIARTEA VENTRICOSA, _Martius_.
Pashiúba barriguda, _Brazil_.
This is the most majestic tree of the genus. The stem reaches eighty or
a hundred feet in height, and besides being rather thicker in proportion
than in the last species, offers a remarkable character in being
constantly more or less swollen near the middle or towards the top. The
trunk is generally cylindrical to a height of forty or fifty feet, where
it swells out to double its former diameter or more for ten or fifteen
feet further, when it again diminishes and becomes cylindrical for about
twenty feet to the summit. It is only when the trees have reached their
full height or nearly so that the swelling commences. In a forest where
they abound many may be seen of a large size, but quite cylindrical from
top to bottom, while others present every degree of swelling from a just
perceptible thickening to a most extraordinary enlargement. The column
of air-roots in this species is six or eight feet high, forming a
compact conical mass, the separate roots being more slender than in the
_Iriartea exorhiza_.
The leaves are very large, with the leaflets broadly triangular and much
cut and waved, forming a very elegant and yet massive head of foliage.
The leaf-olumn is very thick, much swollen at the base, and of a deep
bluish green colour.
The unopened spathes are lunate in shape and curved downwards, and the
spadices are small and simply branched.
The wood of this tree is very hard, heavy and black, and is used by the
Indians for making harpoons and spears with which they hunt the
cow-fish. The swollen part of the stem is sometimes cut down and made
into a canoe, when one is required in a hurry; otherwise it is not made
use of.
The tree grows on the Upper Amazon and Rio Negro, on hill sides and on
the banks of brooks and springs; and the Indians say that wherever it
abounds sarsaparilla will be found growing near.
A fruit is represented on the Plate of the natural size.
[Illustration:
Pl. XV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
IRIARTEA SETIGERA. Ht. 20 Ft.
]
PLATE XV.
IRIARTEA SETIGERA, _Martius_.
Pashiúba miri, _Lingoa Geral_.
This small species has the stem from fifteen to twenty feet high, and
varying from the thickness of a finger to that of the wrist, which it
never exceeds. The stem is smooth and cylindrical, but distinctly
ringed. The roots appear only a few inches above the ground. The leaves
are pinnate, the leaflets elongate, triangular and cut at the ends. The
column is short and cylindrical, and both it and the petioles are
covered with short hairs or down. The spadices have long stalks and grow
from beneath or from among the leaves; they are rather large and are
simply branched. The spathes form sheaths at the bases of the spadices,
and are persistent. The fruit is oval, of an orange-red colour, and
about the size of the “hip” or wild rose fruit.
These trees grow on the Upper Amazon and Rio Negro in the dry virgin
forest, where they occur in small scattered groves.
This species is of great importance to the Indian of the Rio Negro. With
its stem he constructs his “gravatána” or blowing tube, which, with the
little arrows before described as made from the spines of the Patawá,
forms a most valuable weapon, enabling him to bring down monkeys,
parrots and curassow birds from their favourite stations on the summits
of the loftiest trees of the forest.
When he wishes to make a “gravatána” he searches in the forest till he
finds two straight and tall stems of the “Pashiúba miri” of such
proportionate thicknesses that one could be contained within the other.
When he returns home he takes a long slender rod which he has prepared
on purpose, generally made of the hard and elastic wood of the “Pashiúba
barriguda,” and with it pushes out the pith from both the stems, and
then with a little bunch of the roots of a tree fern, cleans and
polishes the inside till the bore becomes as hard and as smooth as
polished ebony. He then carefully inserts the slenderer tube within the
larger, placing it so that any curve in the one may counteract that in
the other. Should it still be not quite correct, he binds it carefully
to a post in his house till it is perfectly straight and dry. He then
fits a mouth-piece of wood to the smaller end of the tube, so that the
arrow may go out freely at the other; and when he wishes to finish his
work neatly, winds spirally round it from end to end, the shining bark
of a creeper. Near the lower extremity he forms a sight with the large
curved cutting tooth of the Paca (_Cœlogenus paca_), which he fixes on
with pitch, and the gravatána is then fit for use.
These tubes are never less than eight and are often ten or twelve feet
long, and on looking through a good one, not the slightest irregularity
can be detected from one end to the other. The bore is generally not
large enough to admit the tip of the little finger, so that the breath
more readily fills the whole tube and propels the arrow with great
velocity. The vertical direction is that in which the surest aim can be
taken, and for which the gravatána is best adapted. When birds are
feeding at the top of a lofty tree where the result of a gun-shot would
be doubtful, a skilful Indian will take his station beneath it, and with
a puff from his powerful lungs, will send up his little poisoned arrows
with unerring aim. The wounded birds sometimes turn giddy and drop in a
few seconds, or fly away to a neighbouring tree and in a minute fall
heavily to the ground, or try to pluck out the arrows with their beaks,
which, however, invariably break in the wound. The hunter carefully
marks the direction in which each one falls, and when his quiver is
emptied of arrows or the tree of birds, walks round and gathers up the
game. His weapon makes no noise, and he therefore often does more
execution than the best European sportsman armed with his double-barrel
Manton.
On Plate XV. fig. 1. is a fruit of the natural size; fig. 2. is the
gravatána or Indian blowpipe.
Genus RAPHIA, _Commerson_.
Male and female flowers intermixed on the same spadix. No common spathe,
but many small incomplete sheaths. Male flowers with from six to twelve
stamens and no rudiments of a pistil. Female flowers with three sessile
stigmas and barren stamens.
The stems are short, thick and ringed. The leaves are very large,
regular and pinnate; the leaflets are linear and have spinulose midribs
and edges. The bases of the petioles are sheathing, and persistent some
way down the stem, and the margins are fibrous. The spadices grow from
among the leaves, and are very large and much branched; and the fruit is
oblong and covered with large imbricated scales.
There are three species of the genus known; one is a native of the west
coast of Africa, another of Madagascar, while a third is found on the
banks of the Lower Amazon.
[Illustration:
Pl. XVI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
RAPHIA TÆDIGERA. Ht. 60 Ft.
]
PLATE XVI.
RAPHIA TÆDIGERA, _Martius_.
Jupatí, _Lingoa Geral_.
This is one of the most striking of the many noble Palms which grow on
the rich alluvium of the Amazon. Its comparatively short stem enables us
fully to appreciate the enormous size of its leaves, which are at the
same time equally remarkable for their elegant form. They rise nearly
vertically from the stem and bend out on every side in graceful curves,
forming a magnificent plume seventy feet in height and forty in
diameter. I have cut down and measured leaves forty-eight and fifty feet
long, but could never get at the largest. The leaflets spread out four
feet on each side of the midrib. They are rather irregularly scattered
and not very closely set; they droop at the tips and have weak spinules
along the margins.
The stem does not generally exceed six or eight feet in height and is
about a foot in diameter, clothed for some distance down with the
persistent sheathing bases of the leaf-stalks and the numerous spinous
processes which proceed from them. These spines are something like those
of the “Patawá,” but not so thick and strong.
The spadices are very large, compoundly branched and drooping; they grow
from among the leaves and have numerous bract-like sheaths in the place
of spathes.
The flowers are of a greenish olive colour and densely crowded, and the
fruit is large, oblong, and reticulated with large scales.
The petiole or leaf-stalk of this tree is most extensively useful. It is
often twelve or fifteen feet long below the first leaflets, and four or
five inches in diameter, perfectly straight and cylindrical. When dried,
it almost equals the quill of a bird for strength and lightness, owing
to its thin hard outer covering and soft internal pith. But it is too
valuable to the Indian for him to use it entire. He splits off the
smooth glossy rind in perfectly straight strips and makes baskets and
window blinds. The remaining part is of a consistence between pith and
wood, and is split up into laths about half an inch thick and serves for
a variety of purposes. Window shutters, boxes, bird-cages, partitions
and even entire houses are constructed of it. In the little village of
Nazaré near Pará, many houses of this kind may be seen in which all the
walls are of this material, supported by a few posts at the angles and
fastened together with pegs and slender creepers (sipós).
The hand may be easily pushed through one of these walls, but as the
inhabitants do not trouble themselves with the possession of any article
worth stealing, they sleep as composedly as if stone walls and iron
bolts shut them in with all the security of a more advanced
civilization.
The same material is also used for stoppers for bottles, and we found it
answer admirably for lining our insect boxes, holding the pins securely
and being more uniform in its texture than cork.
This is the only American species of the genus, and it inhabits
exclusively the tide-flooded lands of the Lower Amazon and Pará rivers,
being quite unknown in the interior. When descending from the Rio Negro
to Pará in the summer of 1852, I observed some of our Indians who had
made the voyage before, pointing out this tree to their less travelled
companions as one of the curiosities of the lower country not to be
found in the “Sertaõ.”
It is probable that the leaf, though not entire, is the largest in the
whole vegetable kingdom, some of them covering a surface of more than
200 square feet. In a few years we may be able to see them in the
magnificent Palm House at Kew, where young plants are now growing.
Plate II. fig. 1, a fruit of _Raphia tædigera_ of the natural size.
Genus MAURITIA, _Linnæus_.
Male flowers on one tree, female or hermaphrodite flowers on another.
The spathes are imperfect, bract-ike, tubular sheaths. The male flowers
have six stamens. The female flowers have a three-lobed stigma and six
imperfect stamens.
The stems are either tall, columnar and smooth, or more slender and
armed with strong conical spines. The leaves are all fan-shaped or
radiating from a centre. The spadix is very large and pinnately
branched, and grows from among the leaves. The fruits are of moderate
size, oval or globular, and covered with rather small imbricated scales
pointing downwards.
Four species are described by Martius, three of which occur in the
Amazon district, and four more were met with by me on the Rio Negro, so
that the genus seems confined to the hottest parts of the American
Continent from the level of the sea to an altitude of about 3000 feet.
[Illustration:
Pl. XVII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA FLEXUOSA. Ht. 100 Ft.
]
PLATE XVII.
MAURITIA FLEXUOSA, _Linnæus_.
Mirití, _Lingoa Geral_.
Muríchi, _in Venezuela_.
Itá? _Mouth of the Orinoco._
This is one of the most noble and majestic of the American Palms. It
grows to a height of eighty or a hundred feet. The stem is straight and
smooth, about five feet in circumference, often perfectly cylindrical,
but sometimes swollen near the middle or towards the top, so that the
bottom is the thinnest part.
The leaves spread out in every direction from the top of the stem. They
are very large and fan-shaped, the leaflets spreading out rigidly on all
sides and only drooping at the tips and at the midrib or elongation of
the petiole. The leaves stand on long stalks which are very straight and
thick, and much swollen at the base which clasps the stem. A full-grown
fallen leaf of this tree is a grand sight. The expanded sheathing base
is a foot in diameter; the petiole is a solid beam ten or twelve feet
long, and the leaf itself is nine or ten in diameter. An entire leaf is
a load for a man.
The spadices grow out from among the leaves; they are very large,
pinnately branched and horizontal or drooping. The fruit is spherical,
the size of a small apple and covered with rather small, smooth, brown,
reticulated scales, beneath which is a thin coating of pulp. A spadix
loaded with fruit is of immense weight, often more than two men could
carry between them.
The leaves, fruit and stem of this tree are all useful to the natives of
the interior. The leaf-stalks are applied to the same purposes as those
of the species last described, the Jupatí. The epidermis of the leaves
furnishes the material of which the string for hammocks, and cordage for
a variety of purposes is made. The unopened leaves form a thick-pointed
column rising from the very centre of the crown of foliage. This is cut
down, and by a little shaking the tender leaflets fall apart. Each one
is then skilfully stripped of its outer covering, a thin riband-like
pellicle of a pale yellow colour which shrivels up almost into a thread.
These are then tied in bundles and dried, and are afterwards twisted by
rolling on the breast or thigh into string, or with the fingers into
thicker cords. The article most commonly made from it is the “réde,” or
netted hammock, which is the almost universal bed of the native tribes
of the Amazon. These are formed by doubling the string over two rods or
poles about six or seven feet apart, till there are forty or fifty
parallel threads, which are then secured at intervals of about a foot by
cross strings twisted and tied on to every longitudinal one. A strong
cord is then passed through the loop formed by all the strings brought
together at each end, by which the hammock is hung up a few feet from
the ground, and in this open net the naked Indian sleeps beside his fire
as comfortably as we do in our beds of down.
Other tribes twist the strings together in a complicated manner so that
the hammock is more elastic, and the Brazilians have introduced a
variety of improvements by using a kind of knitting needles producing a
closer web, or by a large wooden frame with rollers, on which they weave
in a rude manner with a woof and weft as in a regular loom. They also
dye the string of many brilliant colours which they work in symmetrical
patterns, making the rédes or “maqueiras” as they are there called,
among the gayest articles of furniture to be seen in a Brazilian house
on the Amazon.
From the fruits a favourite Indian beverage is produced. They are soaked
in water till they begin to ferment, and the scales and pulpy matter
soften and can be easily rubbed off in water. When strained through a
sieve it is ready for use, and has a slight acid taste and a peculiar
flavour of the fruit at first rather disagreeable to European palates.
In the tidal districts about Pará, the massive trunks of these trees are
often used to form a raised pathway across the expanse of soft mud
generally left at low water between “terra firma” and the water’s edge.
A smooth and slippery cylinder is certainly not the best thing that
could be devised for this purpose, but as it is the most easily procured
and the least expensive it is proportionately common, and on paying a
visit to many a Brazilian country house, should you arrive at low water,
you will have no other means of getting ashore.
The Miriti is a social palm, covering large tracts of tide-flooded lands
on the Lower Amazon. In these places there is no underwood to break the
view among interminable ranges of huge columnar stems rising undisturbed
by branch or leaf to the height of eighty or a hundred feet,—a vast
natural temple which does not yield in grandeur and sublimity to those
of Palmyra or Athens.
Of the age of these noble trees we have no knowledge, but it is
remarkable how uniform they appear in size, there often being not a
single young tree over a considerable extent of ground, particularly in
places now flooded daily by the tide. One would therefore imagine that
the present trees sprung up when the ground was more elevated than at
present, and that it has since gradually sunk (or the waters risen) till
the conditions have become unfavourable for the growth of young plants,
though not hurtful to those which had already attained a certain age.
Whether such is the true explanation of the phænomenon can only be
decided by continued observation on the spot.
Besides this species which is mentioned by Martius as occurring at Pará,
my friend Mr. Spruce ascertained that another closely allied palm, the
_Mauritia vinifera_, also occurs there. On the Upper Amazon and Rio
Negro a palm is found supposed to be the _M. flexuosa_, but it is not so
lofty a tree, which may perhaps be accounted for by its growing on
annually instead of diurnally flooded lands. It is believed to be the
same species which Humboldt observed on the Serra Duida. The Itá palm
growing on the delta of the Orinoco is also thought to be the same
species. On the river Uaupes, a branch of the Upper Rio Negro, I
observed an allied species called by the natives “Caraná assu.” The stem
was smooth and much more slender and waving, and the leaves much
smaller.
Plants of the _Mauritia flexuosa_ are growing in the Palm House at Kew.
On Plate XVII. a single leaf is represented, showing the flabellate form
produced by abbreviation of the midrib.
Plate II. fig. 2. is a fruit of the natural size.
[Illustration:
Pl. XVIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA CARANA. Ht. 40 Ft.
]
PLATE XVIII.
MAURITIA CARANA, n. sp.
Caraná, _Lingoa Geral_.
This is a large smooth-stemmed species allied to _M. flexuosa_, but
quite distinct and hitherto undescribed. The stem is about a foot in
diameter and from twenty to forty feet high, smooth and obscurely
ringed. The leaves are very similar to those of the Mirití, but the
leaflets are not so deeply divided, being united together at the base
for one-third of their entire length, and much more drooping at the
tips. The petioles are very large, straight and cylindrical; their
dilated bases are persistent for a considerable distance down the stem,
and their margins give out a quantity of fibres which clothe it as in
the _Leopoldinia piassaba_, though rather less densely.
The spadices grow from among the leaves and are somewhat more erect and
much smaller than in the Mirití, and the fruits are less abundant,
smaller and slightly ovate.
The leaf-stalks of this species are used for the same purposes as those
of the Mirití and Jupatí already described, as those palms are generally
absent where this is abundant. The part most generally used, however, is
the leaf, which for thatching is preferred to that of any other species,
on account of its having so large a portion of the base entire and being
of a very durable texture. A roof well-thatched with Caraná will last
eight or ten years without renewing, and the leaves are so constantly
cut for this purpose that it is hardly possible to find an entire and
handsome tree. Though so closely resembling the Mirití, the epidermis is
never used for cordage, and on my asking an Indian the reason, he quite
laughed at the idea, saying that it was quite impossible because the
Caraná “did not produce any thread.”
This tree grows in the district of the Rio Negro and Upper Orinoco, but
is not found on the Amazon. It prefers the dry Catinga forests, or the
sandy margins of streams out of reach of the highest floods. At Javita I
observed it growing within a few yards of the Mirití, but still
preserving all its distinctive characters.
It is called by the natives Caraná, the smaller prickly stemmed species
being known by the name of Caranaí.
[Illustration:
Pl. XIX.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA ACULEATA. Ht. 45 Ft.
]
PLATE XIX.
MAURITIA ACULEATA, _Humboldt_.
Caranaí, _Lingoa Geral_ (_Rio Negro_).
Caraná? (_Pará_).
This species has a tall, erect and slender stem reaching about forty or
fifty feet in height and armed with numerous, long, conical, woody
spines arranged in rings. The leaves are rather small with the leaflets
rigid and very slightly drooping at the tips, and united at the base for
about one-eighth of their length. The petioles are long and slender and
are deciduous, the entire leaf falling away from the stem. The midrib
and edges of the leaflets are armed with weak spinules. The spadices are
small and grow somewhat erect so as to be partly concealed among the
leaves, and the fruit is oval and rather small.
This species grows on the Upper Rio Negro and Atabapo, in marshes, with
a rocky subsoil, and in the moist parts of the Catinga forest. The
Caraná, common in the swamps (not in the tide-flooded lands) about Pará,
is very closely allied or may be the same species.
[Illustration:
Pl. XX.
W. Fitch. lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA GRACILIS. Ht. 30 Ft.
]
PLATE XX.
MAURITIA GRACILIS, n. sp.
Caranaí, _Lingoa Geral_.
This very elegant species is rather smaller than the last. The stem is
from twenty to thirty feet high, slender, waving, and ringed with
conical spines rather smaller than in _M. aculeata_.
The leaves are from five to eight in number with much-drooping leaflets.
The petioles are slender, short, and greatly dilated at the base. The
spadices are three or four in number, growing from among the leaves, of
very large size in proportion to the tree, much branched and drooping.
They bear great quantities of fruit, which is of an oval shape and
nearly as large as that of the _Mauritia carana_.
This beautiful little palm is first met with about Barcellos on the Rio
Negro, more than 300 miles up the river, and is thence common as far as
the black-water tributaries of the Orinoco. It always grows close to the
water’s edge in clumps of thirty or forty individuals, and its drooping
leaves of a pale hoary green colour, never so much crowded as to lose
their distinct outline, with the bending clusters of rich brown fruit,
render it one of the greatest ornaments of its native river. The fruit
is eaten, after being softened by soaking some time in water.
It seems closely allied to _M. armata_ of Martius, which is found much
farther south, on the banks of the S. Francisco River, but is probably
quite a distinct species.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXI.
W. Fitch. lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAURITIA PUMILA. Ht. 10 Ft.
]
PLATE XXI.
MAURITIA PUMILA, n. sp.
Caranaí, _Lingoa Geral_.
This curious little palm is only eight or ten feet high, and has the
stem slender, ringed, and armed with strong conical spines. The leaves
are rather small and few in number, and the leaflets are much shorter,
broader and more rigid than in any other palm of this genus. The
petioles are long and rather thick, much sheathing at the bases which
are persistent, clothing the stem some distance down after the leaves
have dropped away from them, a character not found in any other prickly
stemmed species. The spadix is very long, branched and drooping. The
fruit was not seen.
I only met with this palm on the Upper Rio Negro in two localities on
the sandy margins of rivers and lakes just above the limits of the
winter floods.
Genus LEPIDOCARYUM, _Martius_.
Male flowers on one tree, female or hermaphrodite flowers on another.
Spathes, imperfect, bract-like, tubular sheaths. The male flowers have
six stamens. The female flowers have three sessile stigmas and six
imperfect stamens.
The stems are very slender, unarmed with spines or tubercles and deeply
ringed. The leaves are fan-shaped, and have slender petioles and long
swollen sheaths. The spadices are elongate and pinnately branched,
growing from among the leaves. The fruits are oblong and covered with
imbricated scales.
These delicate and very rare little Palms scarcely differ botanically
from the last genus. Two species only are known, inhabiting the dense
virgin forests of the Upper Amazon and Rio Negro, where they appear to
be very locally distributed.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
LEPIDOCARYUM TENUE Ht. 8 Ft.
]
PLATE XXII.
LEPIDOCARYUM TENUE, _Martius_.
Caranaí do Mato, _of the Rio Negro_.
This, the smallest of the fan-leaved Palms, has a smooth, ringed, waving
stem as thick as one’s finger and six or eight feet high. Its dark green
glossy leaves, with narrow drooping leaflets, grow on long and slender
stalks which have their sheathing bases much swollen and lengthened.
The spadices are small and slender, and the fruits, which are not
abundant, are scaled in the same manner as those of the Mauritias, and
are about the size of a large hazel-nut.
This rare and elegant species grows in the gloomiest depths of the
virgin forest of the Upper Rio Negro, generally at some distance inland
from the rivers, and shaded by the loftiest forest trees.
Plate II. fig. 4. represents a fruit of this species of the natural
size.
Genus GEONOMA, _Willdenow_.
Male and female flowers on distinct trees, or rarely on distinct
spadices of the same tree. Spathe small, incomplete. Male flowers with
six stamens and a rudimentary pistil. Female flowers with three stigmas
and a six-toothed ring of abortive stamens.
These are small palms with slender, smooth, ringed, reed-like stems. The
leaves are large, regularly or irregularly pinnate, with the leaflets
broad, and the bases of the petioles sheathing. The spadices are slender
and more or less branched, and the spathes are double but small and
membranous. The fruits are small, round or ovate, and are not eatable.
There are thirty-three species of this genus known, all of small size,
and inhabiting various parts of South America and Mexico, from the level
of the sea to 2000 feet above it. Many species may be seen flourishing
in the Palm House at Kew.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
GENOMA MULTIFLORA. Ht. 12 Ft.
]
PLATE XXIII.
GEONOMA MULTIFLORA, _Martius_.
Ubimrána, _Lingoa Geral_.
This handsome species is from eight to fifteen feet high, and has the
stem regularly ringed or jointed, giving it a reed-like appearance. The
leaves are very large, regularly pinnate and gracefully drooping on
every side. The leaflets are very regularly placed on the midrib, and
the terminal pair are much larger and broader. The petioles are slender
and smooth, and the sheathing bases have an expanded fibrous margin.
The spadices grow from among the lower leaves, and are short, erect and
simply branched. The spathes are very small and concealed among the
petioles. The fruit is small, ovate, and when ripe of a red colour.
This appears to be the _Geonoma multiflora_ of Martius, but the species
are so closely allied that without a comparison of specimens it is very
difficult absolutely to identify them.
I have found it only in the Catinga forests of the Upper Rio Negro,
where it occurs very sparingly.
A fruit is represented on the Plate of the natural size.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXIV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
GEONOMA PANICULIGERA. Ht. 9 Ft.
]
PLATE XXIV.
GEONOMA PANICULIGERA, _Martius_.
Ubim de Cotiwiya, _Lingoa Geral_.
This is a species from six to nine feet high and very similar in
appearance to the last. The leaves, however, have only three or four
pairs of leaflets of irregular width, the terminal pair being always
very large and broad, and the others not being always placed opposite
each other on the midrib.
The spadix is large, much branched and somewhat drooping, and has a
small, soft and inconspicuous basal spathe. The fruit is small and
round.
This species grows in the same localities and in the same soil as the
last, but is much more abundant. It appears to agree well with the _G.
paniculigera_ of Martius.
There is a very closely allied species abundant in certain parts of the
flooded lands or “gapó” of the Rio Negro, which is much used for
thatching. The leaves being cut, the leaf-stalks are doubled and hitched
on side by side to a strip of “pashiúba,” and secured with “sipós”
(which are the air-roots of _Arums_ and other plants). They are said to
make one of the most durable kinds of roof, and are much used for
covering the semicircular “toldas” of canoes. They are also considered
the best material for lining baskets of salt, and persons often go
several days’ journey to procure them for both these purposes.
I had no opportunity of closely examining the species which produces
these leaves, and which is called “Ubim,” in contradistinction to the
other allied species which are termed “Ubimrana” (false ubim), “Ubim de
cotiwiya” (Agouti’s ubim) and other such names, and all of which, though
sometimes used as substitutes, are said to be much less durable.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
GEONOMA RECTIFOLIA. Ht. 8 Ft.
]
PLATE XXV.
GEONOMA RECTIFOLIA, n. sp.
Ubimrána, _Lingoa Geral_.
This little species is nearly allied to the last. It reaches six or
eight feet in height and has the stem distinctly jointed and the leaves
persistent some way down it. The petioles grow very upright, and there
are three or four pair of long, narrow and rather rigid leaflets, the
terminal being the largest.
The spadices are numerous from the axils of the lower leaves, and are
small and simply branched; and the fruit is very small, round and black.
This palm may be distinguished from _G. paniculigera_, to which it is
most closely allied, by its very long narrow leaflets and much more
erect habit; and by its smaller and less-branched spadices growing lower
down on the stem, often below the leaves.
I found it in a few localities only on the Upper Rio Negro, growing in
the sandy Catinga forest near the margin of the river.
A fruit is represented on the Plate of the natural size.
Genus MANICARIA, _Gærtner_.
Male and female flowers in the same spadix. Spathe fusiform, fibrous,
complete, breaking open irregularly. Male flowers with twenty-four to
thirty stamens. Female flowers (situated below the male) with three
sessile stigmas and twelve rudimentary stamens.
Stem short, thick and irregularly ringed. Leaves very large, entire and
rigid, the sheathing bases persistent. Spadices simply branched, growing
from among the leaves, nearly erect. Fruit large, hard, somewhat
triangular or three-lobed and three-seeded, externally very rugose.
Only one species of this genus is known, which inhabits the Lower Amazon
at the level of the sea.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXVI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
MANICARIA SACCIFERA Ht. 40 Ft.
]
PLATE XXVI.
MANICARIA SACCIFERA, _Gærtner_.
Bussú, _Lingoa Geral_.
This unique and handsome palm has the stem from ten to fifteen feet
high, curved or crooked and deeply ringed. The leaves are very large,
entire, rigid and furrowed, and have a serrated margin; they are often
thirty feet long and four or five wide, and split irregularly with age.
The petioles are slender with a broadly expanded fibrous-edged sheath at
the base. These sheaths are persistent and often cover the stem down to
the ground.
The spadices are numerous, growing from among the leaves, and are simply
branched and drooping. The fruit is of an olive colour, somewhat
three-lobed and with a rugose or papillate exterior covering. The spathe
is fusiform and entire, of a fibrous cloth-like texture and of a brown
colour. As the spadix expands it breaks open irregularly, but in some
cases a dead unopened flower bunch is found enclosed in an entire
half-rotten spathe, as if the vital powers of the plant had not been
sufficient to tear asunder the tough fibrous sheath.
The “bussú” produces the largest entire leaves of any known palm, and
for this reason, as well as on account of their firm and rigid texture,
they form the very best and most durable thatch. The leaves are split
down the midrib and the halves laid obliquely on the rafters, so that
the furrows formed by the veins lie in a nearly vertical direction and
serve as so many little gutters to carry off the water more rapidly. A
well-made thatch of “bussú” will last ten or twelve years, and an Indian
will often take a week’s voyage in order to get a canoe-load of the
leaves to cover his house.
The spathe too is much valued by the Indian, furnishing him with an
excellent and durable cloth. Taken off entire it forms bags in which he
keeps the red paint for his toilet or the silk cotton for his arrows, or
he even stretches out the larger ones to make himself a cap,—cunningly
woven by nature without seam or joining. When cut open longitudinally
and pressed flat, it is used to preserve his delicate feather ornaments
and gala dresses, which are kept in a chest of plaited palm leaves
between layers of the smooth “bussú” cloth.
This species inhabits the tidal swamps of the Lower Amazon. A palm
called “bussú” is also found on the Rio Negro and Upper Amazon, but it
is of a smaller size and is probably a distinct species.
A spathe is represented on the Plate and a dead stem from which the
leaves have entirely fallen.
Plate II. fig. 3, a fruit of _Manicaria saccifera_ of the natural size.
Genus DESMONCUS, _Martius_.
Male flowers on the upper parts of the branches of the spadix, females
on the lower. Spathe fusiform, woody, at length deciduous. Male flowers
with six stamens and linear acute anthers. Female flowers with a short
style and three stigmas and six small scaly rudiments of stamens.
Stems slender, flexible, climbing over shrubs or trees. Leaves
alternate, pinnate, much sheathing, with long hooked spines in the place
of the three or four terminal pair of leaflets. The spadices are
axillary and simply branched, the spathes double, fusiform or
ventricose, and the fruits are small, round, and generally red. The
stems and leaves are more or less prickly.
Fourteen species of these curious Palms are found in various parts of
South America, principally in the low lands, as they are not known at a
greater height than 2000 feet above the level of the sea. They differ
remarkably from all other American palms in their long climbing stems,
in which they resemble the Calami or Canes so abundant in the East
Indies.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXVII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
DESMONCUS MACROACANTHUS. Ht. 50 Ft.
]
PLATE XXVII.
DESMONCUS MACROACANTHUS, _Martius_.
Jacitára, _Lingoa Geral_.
The stem of this palm is very slender, weak and flexible, often sixty or
seventy feet long, and climbing over bushes and trees or trailing along
the ground. It is armed with scattered tubercular prickles. The leaves
grow alternately along the stem; they are pinnate, with from three to
five pairs of leaflets, beyond which the midrib is produced and armed
with several pairs of strong spines directed backwards, and with
numerous smaller prickles. The leaflets are ovate, with the edges waved
or curled. The bases of the petioles are expanded into long membranous
sheaths.
The spadices grow on long stalks from the axils of the leaves and are
simply branched. The spathes are ventricose, erect, persistent and
prickly, and the fruit is globular, of a red colour, and not eatable.
The rind or bark of this species is much used for making the “tipitis”
or elastic plaited cylinders used for squeezing the juice out of the
grated Mandiocca-root in the manufacture of farinha. These cylinders are
sometimes made of the rind of certain water plants and of the petioles
of several palms, but those constructed of “Jacitára” are said to
outlast two or three of the others, and though they are much more
difficult to make, are most generally used among the Indian tribes. When
the cylinders are used they are suspended from a strong pole, having
been first filled with the grated pulp. A long lever is passed through
the loop at the lower end of the “tipiti,” by means of which it is
stretched, the power being applied by a woman sitting on the further
extremity of the pole. The cylinder thus becomes powerfully contracted,
and the poisonous juice runs out at every part of the surface and is
caught in a pan below in order to be carefully thrown away, for it would
cause speedy death to any domestic animal which should drink it.
This species grows in the Catinga forests of the Upper Rio Negro and on
the margins of small streams, climbing over trees and hanging in
festoons between them, throwing out its armed leaves on every side to
catch the unwary traveller. How often will they seize the insect-net of
the ardent Entomologist just as he is making a dash at some rare
butterfly, or fasten in his jacket or shirt-sleeve, or pull the cap from
his head! Woe then to the impatient wanderer! a pull or a tug will
inevitably cause a portion of the fractured garment to stay behind, for
the “jacitára” never looses its hold, and it is only by deliberately
extracting its fangs that the intruder can expect to depart unhurt.
In some places small igaripés or forest streams are almost filled up
with various climbing grasses and creepers, among which the “jacitára”
holds a prominent place, and it is up these streams that the Indians
often delight to fix their abode. In such cases they never cut down a
branch, but pass and repass daily in their little canoes which wind like
snakes among the tangled mass of thorny vegetation. They are thus almost
safe against the incursions of the white traders, who often attack them
in their most distant retreats, carry fire and sword into their peaceful
houses and take captive their wives and children. But few white men can
penetrate for miles along a little winding stream such as is here
described, where not a broken twig or cut branch is found to show that a
human being has ever passed before. Thus does the thorny “jacitára” help
to secure the independence of the wild Indian in the depths of the
forests which he loves.
This species most nearly agrees with the _D. macroacanthus_ of Martius.
Fine specimens of an allied species may be seen growing in the Palm
House at Kew.
A fruit is represented on the Plate of the natural size.
Genus BACTRIS, _Jacquin_.
Male and female flowers intermingled in the same spadix, the females
being more abundant in the lower parts and the males in the upper.
Spathe double, exterior short and membranous, interior complete, woody.
Male flowers with six, nine or twelve stamens. Female flowers with three
sessile stigmas, and the stamens represented by a rudimentary ring.
The stems in this genus are very slender, ringed, nearly smooth or with
a few scattered spines. The leaves are more or less terminal, generally
few in number, pinnate or entire, with the bases of the petioles much
sheathing and very spiny. The spathe is also clothed with spines. The
spadices are simple or simply branched and grow from the axils of the
leaves. The fruit is small and round, and the outer pulp is often
subacid and eatable.
This very extensive genus of small prickly Palms contains forty-six
species, all natives of South America. Two species described by Martius
are here figured, together with six others apparently new, but as it may
be impossible to identify those not seen in fruit, some of them have
been left unnamed.
The species here figured are all from the Rio Negro, where I began
studying them, and are sufficient to give an idea of their general
characteristics and aspect.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXVIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
BACTRIS PECTINATA. Ht. 8 Ft.
]
PLATE XXVIII.
BACTRIS PECTINATA, _Martius_.
Iú, _Lingoa Geral_.
The stem of this species is from six to ten feet high, very slender,
strongly ringed or jointed and smooth, but all other parts of the plant,
the petioles, sheaths, spathes, &c., are prickly. The leaves are
regularly pinnate, with the leaflets long, narrow, pointed and hairy
beneath. The long sheathing bases of the petioles are persistent,
covering the stem often half way down to the ground.
The spadices grow from among the persistent leaf-sheaths; they are very
small, simple or two- or three-branched, and have a small persistent
fibrous spathe. The fruit is very small and globular and of a red
colour, and is not eatable.
This very hairy and prickly little palm grows in the sandy Catinga
forest of the Upper Rio Negro and in the most exposed localities. It
seems to agree well with the _B. pectinata_ of Martius.
A fruit is shown on the Plate of the natural size.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXIX.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
BACTRIS —— Ht. 12 Ft.
]
PLATE XXIX.
BACTRIS ——, n. sp.
Marayarána, _Lingoa Geral_.
The stem of this species is about an inch in diameter and ten or twelve
feet high, thickly set with flat black spines disposed in rings. The
leaves are rather large and irregularly pinnate, the leaflets being in
little groups of two or four, standing out at various angles from the
midrib, the groups themselves being set alternately along it. The
leaflets are elongate and have the midrib produced in a bristly point,
and the terminal pair are not larger than the rest. The petioles are
armed with flat whitish spines, which on the long sheathing bases become
black.
I met with this palm only once, growing in the dry virgin forest on the
banks of the Rio Negro. Though it had neither flowers nor fruit at the
time, yet its habit is so peculiar as to leave little doubt of its being
a new species. It seems most nearly allied to the _Bactris macroacantha_
of Martius.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXX.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
BACTRIS ELATIOR. Ht. 20 Ft.
]
PLATE XXX.
BACTRIS ELATIOR, n. sp.
Marayarána, _Lingoa Geral_.
This is a tall and elegant species. The stem is from fifteen to twenty
feet high and about one inch in diameter, with a few scattered groups of
small spines. The leaves are regularly pinnate, with broad leaflets
narrowed at the base and ending in a lengthened point, the terminal pair
being rather broader. The petioles and their sheathing bases are covered
with broad, flat, whitish spines.
The spadices grow from among the lower leaves on long stalks and are
simply branched and drooping. The spathes are elongate fusiform and
spiny, and are persistent. The fruit is small and globular.
This very graceful palm grows in the moist part of the virgin forest of
the Upper Rio Negro, where I found it on the banks of small forest
streams; and it seems quite distinct from any of the very numerous
species described by Martius.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXXI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
BACTRIS —— Ht. 20 Ft.
]
PLATE XXXI.
BACTRIS ——, n. sp.
Native name unknown.
The stem of this curious palm is from twenty to twenty-five feet high
and very slender. It is marked with slightly sunk rings and has a few
scattered spines. The leaves are rather small, few in number and
terminal. The leaflets are rigid, narrowed at the base, widest near the
end and suddenly tapering to a point. They are arranged in groups of
three or four at short intervals along the midrib, from which they stand
out at different angles. The petioles and their sheathing bases are
thickly set with slender, flattish, black spines generally pointing
downwards.
This species was only found once, growing in the “gapó” or flooded lands
of the Upper Rio Negro, and at the time had neither flowers nor fruit.
The form and arrangement of the leaflets are so peculiar that it cannot
be confounded with any species yet described.
A leaflet is represented of a larger size to show the peculiar form.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXXII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
BACTRIS MACROCARPA. Ht. 10 Ft.
]
PLATE XXXII.
BACTRIS MACROCARPA, n. sp.
Iú, _Lingoa Geral_.
This species has the stem about an inch in diameter and ten or twelve
feet high, distinctly jointed, smooth and reed-like, but with a few
spines in small groups at the joints. The leaves are terminal, of
moderate size and rather interruptedly pinnate. The leaflets often grow
in pairs and are broad, narrowed at the base and have the midrib
produced at the point, the terminal pair being the largest. The petioles
and sheaths are thickly set with whitish flat prickles.
The spadices are small, five- or six-branched, and rather long-stalked.
The spathe is small, smooth and persistent. The fruit is oval, with a
produced apex, large in proportion to the tree, of a reddish or
yellowish olive colour, and not eatable, the outer covering being dry
and woolly.
The smooth reed-like stem of this species resembles those of the
Geonomas, and it is also remarkable for the large size of its fruit. It
grows on the dry sandy soil of the Catinga forests of the Upper Rio
Negro. It seems most nearly allied to _B. mitis_ of Martius.
A fruit is represented on the Plate of the natural size, and a leaflet
reduced one-fourth to show the peculiar form.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXXIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
BACTRIS TENUIS. Ht. 6 Ft.
]
PLATE XXXIII.
BACTRIS TENUIS, n. sp.
Iú, _Lingoa Geral_.
In this species the stem is not thicker than a goose quill, distinctly
jointed and smooth. The leaves are terminal, four or five in number, and
rather irregularly pinnate. The leaflets are elongate and acute, with
produced points, four or five in number, on each side of the midrib, the
terminal pair being the broadest. The petioles and their sheathing bases
are covered with small, flat, black spines.
The spadices grow from below the leaves and are very small and
unbranched. The spathes are fusiform, erect, persistent and smooth. The
fruit is small, globose, and of a red colour.
This is one of the smallest of Palms, and in every part of its structure
offers a striking contrast to the great _Mauritia_ and other giants of
the family. While they possess huge columnar stems a hundred feet in
height and two feet in diameter, this has but a slender stalk the
thickness of a quill; and while their fruit bunches are the largest in
the vegetable kingdom, the whole spadix of this species is smaller than
a bunch of currants.
It is allied to _B. cuspidata_ and to _B. fissifrons_ of Martius, but
seems sufficiently distinct from either of them. It grows exposed to the
sun in the sandy Catinga forests of the Upper Rio Negro.
An entire spadix with fruit is represented on the Plate, of the natural
size.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXXIV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
BACTRIS SIMPLICIFRONS. Ht. 6 Ft.
]
PLATE XXXIV.
BACTRIS SIMPLICIFRONS, _Martius_.
Iú, _Lingoa Geral_.
The stem of this little palm resembles in size and appearance that of
_B. tenuis_. The leaves are five or six in number, terminal, and consist
of a single broad bifid leaflet, or more properly a pair of opposite
terminal leaflets. The petioles and their sheathing bases are thickly
set with spines.
The spadices grow from below the leaves; they are unbranched and bend
downwards, and the spathes are elongate, small, erect or horizontal,
smooth and persistent.
This pretty little species seems identical with one described by Martius
under the name of _Bactris simplicifrons_. It is not uncommon in the dry
Catinga forests of the Upper Rio Negro.
BACTRIS MARAJA, _Martius_.
Marajá, _Lingoa Geral_.
This is a palm rather larger than most others of the genus, and
inhabiting the flooded banks of the Amazon.
It produces large clusters of fruit resembling small black grapes, and
having a thin pulp of an agreeable subacid flavour,—a peculiarity not
found in the fruit of any other American palm that I am acquainted with.
The places where it grows are often so deeply flooded that the fruit
hangs close to the surface of the water, and can be plucked while
passing in a canoe.
Dried specimens of the tree and fruit are in the Museum, and young
plants are growing in the Palm House at Kew.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXXV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
BACTRIS INTEGRIFOLIA. Ht. 9 Ft.
]
PLATE XXXV.
BACTRIS INTEGRIFOLIA, n. sp.
Iú, _Lingoa Geral_.
This beautiful species has the stem hardly so thick as the little
finger, and nine or ten feet high, smooth and distinctly jointed. The
leaves are four or five in number, terminal, entire, three or four times
as long as they are wide, and not very deeply bifid at the end. The
petioles and their sheathing bases are thickly set with long, flat,
black spines.
The spadices are very small, erect and two-branched, growing from among
the persistent sheathing bases below the leaves. The spathes are small,
erect and persistent, clothed with adpressed brown spines. The fruit is
small and globular, and of a black colour.
This palm was found at S. Carlos on the Upper Rio Negro and on the
“Estrada de Javita,” a road through the forest for ten miles, which
connects the river-systems of the Rio Negro and Orinoco, and along which
most of the traffic between Venezuela and Brazil passes. In both cases
it grew in the shady virgin forest.
Genus GUILIELMA, _Martius_.
Male and female flowers mixed in the same spadix, bracteate. Spathe
double; exterior bifid; interior complete, woody. Male flowers with six
stamens and a rudimentary pistil. Female flowers with three sessile
stigmas, but with no rudiments of stamens.
The stems are lofty, rather slender, and armed with dense black
cylindrical spines disposed in regular rings. The leaves are terminal
and pinnate, but in the young plants entire, and the petioles are very
spiny. The spadices are simply branched, growing from beneath the
leaves, and the fruits are large, ovate, fleshy or mealy and eatable.
Three species only of this genus are known, inhabiting the lower
mountain ranges of Peru and New Granada. They are lofty and conspicuous
Palms with a remarkably handsome crown of foliage. One species only is
found in the Amazon district, in all parts of which it is commonly
cultivated.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXXVI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
GUILIELMA SPECIOSA. Ht. 60 Ft.
]
PLATE XXXVI.
GUILIELMA SPECIOSA, _Martius_.
Pupúnha, _Lingoa Geral_.
Pirijao, _Indians of Venezuela_, Humboldt.
“The Peach Palm.”
This most picturesque and elegant palm has the stem slender,
cylindrical, and thickly set with long needle-shaped spines disposed in
rings or bands. It reaches sixty feet in height, and grows quite erect,
though in exposed situations it becomes curved and waving. The leaves
are very numerous, terminal, pinnate and drooping, forming a nearly
spherical crown to the stem; and the leaflets growing out from the
midrib in various directions, and being themselves curled or waved, give
the whole mass of foliage a singularly plumy appearance. The young
plants have the leaves entire like those of the Bussú, but as the age of
the tree increases they break up into regular narrow leaflets.
The spadices grow from beneath the leaves, and are small, simply
branched and drooping. The spathes are ventricose, woody and persistent,
curving over the spadix.
The fruit is about the size of an apricot, of a triangular oval shape,
and fine reddish-yellow colour. In most instances the seed is abortive,
the whole fruit being a farinaceous mass. Occasionally, however, fruits
are found containing the perfect stony seed, and they are then nearly
double the usual size. This production of undeveloped fruits may be
partly due to change of soil and climate, for the tree is not found wild
in the Amazon district, but is invariably planted near the Indians’
houses. In their villages many hundreds of these trees may often be
seen, adding to the beauty of the landscape, and supplying the
inhabitants with an abundance of wholesome food. In fact it here takes
the place of the cocoa-nut in the East, and is almost as much esteemed.
As the stems are so spiny, it is impossible to climb up them to procure
the fruit in the ordinary way. The Indians therefore construct rough
stages up the sides of the trees, or form rude ladders by securing cross
pieces between two of them, by which they mount so high as to be able to
pull down the bunches of fruit with hooked poles.
The fruits are eaten either boiled or roasted, when they somewhat
resemble Spanish chestnuts, but have a peculiar oily flavour. They are
also ground up into a kind of flour, and made into cakes which are
roasted like cassava bread; or the meal is fermented in water and forms
a subacid creamy liquid. Parrots, macaws and many other fruit-eating
birds devour them, and tame monkeys eat them greedily, though the wild
ones cannot climb the spiny stems to obtain them.
The wood of this tree when old and black is exceedingly hard, turning
the edge of any ordinary axe. When descending the River Uaupes in April
1852, I had a number of parrots whose objections to any restraint upon
their liberty caused me much trouble. Their first cage was of wicker,
and in a couple of hours they had all set themselves at liberty. Then
tough green wood was tried, but the same time only was required to gnaw
that through. Thick bars of deal were bitten through in a single night,
so I then tried the hard wood of the Pashiúba. This checked them for a
short time, but in less than a week by continual gnawing they had
chipped these away and again escaped. I now began to despair; no iron
for bars was to be procured and my resources were exhausted, when one of
my Indians recommended me to try Pupúnha, assuring me that if their
beaks were of iron they could not bite that. A tree was accordingly cut
down and bars made from it, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that
their most persevering efforts now made little impression.
The very sharp needle-like spines of this tree are used by some tribes
to puncture the skin, in order to produce the tattooed marks with which
they decorate various parts of their bodies. Soot produced from burning
pitch rubbed into the wounds is said to make the indelible bluish stain
which these markings present.
This palm appears to be indigenous to the countries near the Andes. On
the Amazon and Rio Negro it is never found wild. It is mentioned by
Humboldt as having a smooth polished stem, which is a mistake.
Very fine specimens of this tree are growing in the great Palm House at
Kew.
Plate III. fig. 4. represents a fruit of the natural size.
Genus ACROCOMIA, _Martius_.
Female flowers in the inner, male flowers in the outer part of the same
spadix. Spathe complete, woody. Male flowers with six stamens and a
rudimentary pistil. Female flowers with a short style and three stigmas,
and a ring of abortive stamens.
The stems of these Palms are tall, strong, and more or less prickly. The
leaves are large, pinnate, much drooping, and forming a dense spherical
head of foliage. The leaflets are linear, and with the petioles are very
prickly. The spadix is simply branched, and the fruit is round or oval,
of an olive-green colour, and has a firm fleshy outer covering, which is
often eaten.
Eight species of this genus are known, inhabiting various parts of South
America, but more particularly Brazil. One or perhaps two species are
found at Pará, but none on the Upper Amazon, where the alluvial soil and
dense forests are unsuited to their growth.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXXVII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ACROCOMIA LASIOSPATHA. Ht. 40 Ft.
]
PLATE XXXVII.
ACROCOMIA LASIOSPATHA, _Martius_.
Mucujá, _Lingoa Geral_.
The stem of this tree is about forty feet high, strong, smooth and
ringed. The leaves are rather large, terminal and drooping. The leaflets
are long and narrow, and spread irregularly from the midrib, every part
of which is very spiny. The sheathing bases of the leaf-talks are
persistent on the upper part of the stem, and in young trees clothe it
down to the ground.
The spadices grow from among the leaves, erect or somewhat drooping, and
are simply branched. The spathes are woody, persistent and clothed with
spines. The fruit is the size of an apricot, globular, and of a greenish
olive colour, and has a thin layer of firm edible pulp of an orange
colour covering the seed.
This species is common in the neighbourhood of Pará, where its nearly
globular crown of drooping feathery leaves is very ornamental. The
fruit, though oily and bitter, is very much esteemed and is eagerly
sought after. It grows on dry soil about Pará and the Lower Amazon, but
it is quite unknown in the interior.
Several young plants of this and a species closely resembling it, the
_A. sclerocarpa_, are growing in the Palm House at Kew, and in the
Museum at the same place are specimens of the stem and fruit sent by Mr.
Bates and myself from Pará.
Martius mentions the _A. sclerocarpa_ only as being found at Pará, but
his description of the other species agrees best with the tree here
figured. The two, however, seem very closely allied, if they are really
distinct species.
A fruit is represented on the Plate of the natural size.
Genus ASTROCARYUM, _Meyer_.
Female flowers few in number, situated beneath the males on the same
spadix. Spathe complete, woody. Male flowers with six stamens and a
rudimentary pistil. Female flowers with three stigmas and a rudimentary
ring of stamens.
In this genus the stems are generally lofty and thickly set with rings
of spines, but some species are stemless. The leaves are large and
pinnate, the leaflets elongate and linear, and as well as the petioles
very prickly. The spadices are simply branched, and the fruits are ovate
or globose, with a fibrous or fleshy covering, sometimes eatable.
Sixteen species of these Palms are known, inhabiting Mexico, Brazil, and
other parts of South America, but not extending higher up the mountains
than 2000 feet above the sea. They have rather a repulsive aspect, from
almost every part,—stem, leaves, fruit-stalk and spathe, being armed
with acute spines in some cases a foot long.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXXVIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ASTROCARYUM MURUMURU. Ht. 20 Ft.
]
PLATE XXXVIII.
ASTROCARYUM MURUMURÚ, _Martius_.
Murumurú, _Lingoa Geral_.
This palm has the stem from eight to twelve feet high, irregularly
ringed, and armed with long scattered black spines. The leaves are
terminal and of moderate size, regularly pinnate, the leaflets spreading
out uniformly in one plane, elongate, acute, with the terminal pair
shorter and broader. The petioles and sheathing bases are thickly
covered with long black spines generally directed downwards, and often
eight inches long.
The spadices grow from among the leaves and are simply branched and
spiny, erect when in flower, but drooping with the fruit. The spathes
are elongate, splitting open and deciduous. The fruit is of a moderate
size, oval, of a yellowish colour, and with a small quantity of rather
juicy eatable pulp covering the stony seed.
On the Upper Amazon cattle eat the fruits of the Murumurú, wandering
about for days in the forest to procure it. The hard stony seeds pass
through their bodies undigested and become thickly scattered over the
pastures adjoining the houses. They are so hard that it is almost
impossible to break them, except by a very hard blow with a large
hammer. The internal albumen or kernel is also excessively hard, nearly
approaching to vegetable ivory. Yet pigs are very fond of these little
cocoa-nuts, and on one estate on the Upper Amazon where I was staying,
they had scarcely anything else to eat during a part of the year but
those which had passed through the stomachs of the cows. They might
constantly be seen cracking the shell with their powerful jaws, and
grinding up the hard kernels, on which the teeth of few other animals
could make any impression. They not only existed on this food, but in
some cases got actually fat upon it. The black vultures (_Cathartes_)
occasionally eat the outer covering of this and other palm fruits, when
hard-pushed for food.
This tree grows on the tide-flooded lands of the Lower Amazon and on the
margins of the rivers and gapós of the Upper Amazon, though it is
possible that the two may be distinct species. The specimen figured is
from near Pará. There are living plants in the Palm House at the Royal
Kew Gardens.
A portion of a leaf is enlarged to show the spines, and a fruit is
represented of the natural size.
[Illustration:
Pl. XXXIX.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ASTROCARYUM GYNACANTHUM. Ht. 15 Ft.
]
PLATE XXXIX.
ASTROCARYUM GYNACANTHUM, _Martius_.
Mumbáca, _Lingoa Geral_.
This species has a rather slender stem about fifteen feet high, covered
with long, flat, black spines, arranged in regular rings and pointing
downwards. The leaves are terminal, rather large and pinnate. The
leaflets spread regularly in one plane, and are elongate and acute, the
terminal pair being rather shorter and broader. The bases of the
petioles are broadly sheathing, and are all densely spiny.
The spadices grow from the bases of the lower leaves, and are erect when
in flower, but hang down with the ripe fruit, which grows in a dense
cluster at the end of the long stalk which is very spiny, as is also the
elongate persistent spathe. The fruit is small, ovate, of a red colour
and not eatable.
This palm grows in the virgin forests of the Upper Rio Negro, and a
nearly allied or perhaps identical species is common about the city of
Pará.
[Illustration:
Pl. XL.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ASTROCARYUM VULGARE. Ht. 50 Ft.
]
PLATE XL.
ASTROCARYUM VULGARE, _Martius_.
Tucúm, _Lingoa Geral_.
This is a lofty tree, the stem growing to a height of forty or fifty
feet, with a diameter of six or eight inches. It is covered with regular
broad bands or rings of thickly set black spines, with narrow spaces
between them. The leaves are terminal, large and regularly pinnate. The
leaflets are elongate, regularly spreading and drooping. The midrib and
expanded sheaths of the petioles are densely clothed with long, flat,
dusky spines, having a pale expanded margin. The edges of the leaflets
are also armed with fine spines.
The spadix is erect and simply branched, and is often hid among the
foliage. The spathe is persistent, and the fruit is oval, of a greenish
colour and not eatable.
Every part of this palm bristles with sharp spines so as to render it
difficult to handle any portion of it; yet it is of great importance to
the Indians, and in places where it is not indigenous, is cultivated
with care in their mandiocca fields and about their houses, along with
the “Pupúnha” and other fruit trees. Yet they use neither the fruit, the
stem, nor the full-grown leaves. It is only the unopened leaves which
they make use of to manufacture cordage, superior in fineness, strength
and durability to that procured from the _Mauritia flexuosa_. They strip
off the epidermis and prepare it in the same manner as described in the
account of that species, but while the “mirití” is principally used for
hammocks, the “tucúm” serves for bow strings, fishing-nets and other
purposes where fineness, combined with strength, is required. Some of
the tribes on the Upper Amazon, however, make all their hammocks of
“tucúm,” which renders it probable that the _Mauritia flexuosa_ does not
grow there.
The Brazilians of the Rio Negro and Upper Amazon make very beautiful
hammocks of fine “tucúm” thread, knitted by hand into a compact web of
so fine a texture as to occupy two persons three or four months in their
completion. They then sell at about £3 each, and when ornamented with
the feather-work borders, at double that sum. Most of them are sent as
presents to Rio de Janeiro.
Dr. Martius has mistaken the species from which this cordage is
manufactured, stating it to be the “Tucumá,” which, though very nearly
allied, is never used for the purpose. The close resemblance of the
native names is probably what led to the mistake, though they are never
confounded by the Brazilians.
The “tucúm” is found on the “terra firme” or dry forest land of the
Amazon and Rio Negro. It is growing in the Palm House at Kew.
[Illustration:
Pl. XLI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ASTROCARYUM TUCUMA. Ht. 40 Ft.
]
PLATE XLI.
ASTROCARYUM TUCUMA, _Martius_.
Tucumá, _Lingoa Geral_.
This palm is from thirty to forty feet in height, and has the stem armed
with narrow rings of black spines. The leaves are terminal, rather large
and regularly pinnate. The leaflets are elongate, linear and much
drooping, and the midribs and petioles are very prickly. The sheathing
bases of the leaf-stalks are very much swollen where they spring from
the stem. The spadix grows erect from among the leaves and is simply
branched. The fruit is nearly globular, of a greenish yellow colour,
with a layer of yellow fleshy pulp covering the stony seed, much
resembling the fruit of the Mucujá and equally esteemed for food by the
Indians.
This species is very nearly allied to the last, but may readily be
distinguished by its globular fruit, more drooping leaflets, less
prickly habit, and the peculiar aspect of its swollen petioles. It is
abundant near Pará, and is also found in the dry virgin forests of the
Upper Amazon and Rio Negro.
There are young living plants in the Palm House of the Royal Botanic
Gardens at Kew.
Plate II. fig. 5. represents a fruit of the natural size.
[Illustration:
Pl. XLII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ASTROCARYUM JAUARI Ht. 40 Ft.
]
PLATE XLII.
ASTROCARYUM JAUARI, _Martius_.
Jauarí, _Lingoa Geral_.
The Jauarí has the stem rather slenderer than the Tucumá, but of about
equal height, and armed with regular narrow rings of spines. The leaves
are terminal and of moderate size. The leaflets are long, narrow and
very much drooping, and the midribs and sheaths are thickly covered with
long, flat, black spines.
The spadices are erect, simply branched, and hidden amongst the leaves.
The fruit is small, oval, green, and not eatable.
The rather small dense head of foliage, combined with the prickly habit
of this palm, render it altogether one of the least pleasing of the
family; and the feeling is increased by its abundance in many
localities, extending for miles along the river banks to the exclusion
of any other species. It is moreover one of the least useful among the
larger palms, the only part which is applied to any purpose being the
hard, black, oval seeds, of which the Brazilian ladies of the Upper
Amazon make heads for their lace-making bobbins.
This species is unknown in the neighbourhood of Pará and on the Lower
Amazon. It first occurs near Villa Nova, about five hundred miles up the
river, where the tidal rise and fall of the water ceases and the annual
floods rise to a considerable height. From this point upwards it is very
abundant, growing everywhere on the margins of the rivers, in places
which are for six or eight months in the year under water. It is never
found beyond the limits of the floods, and in travelling up the Rio
Negro it is for hundreds of miles the only species of _Astrocaryum_ met
with.
[Illustration:
Pl. XLIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ASTROCARYUM ACULEATUM Ht. 20 Ft.
]
PLATE XLIII.
ASTROCARYUM ACULEATUM? _Meyer._
Marayá, _Lingoa Geral_.
This small species has the stem from fifteen to twenty feet high and
about two inches in diameter, with obscure rings of spines at irregular
intervals. The leaves are terminal, rather large and regularly pinnate.
The leaflets are narrow, rigid and scarcely drooping, with the terminal
pair broader. The midrib and leaflets are smooth, but the bases and
sheaths of the petioles are very prickly.
The spadices grow from below the leaves and are very small and simply
branched. The spathes are small, ovate, swollen, erect, persistent and
very prickly. The trees were not found in fruit.
This tree agrees pretty well with Dr. Martius’ description of _A.
aculeatum_. It grows in the virgin forest of the Upper Rio Negro.
[Illustration:
Pl. XLIV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ASTROCARYUM ACAULE Ht. 9 Ft.
]
PLATE XLIV.
ASTROCARYUM ACAULE, _Martius_.
Iú, _Lingoa Geral_.
This palm never has any stem, the leaves springing at once from the
ground. They are eight or ten feet long, slender and pinnate. The
leaflets are very narrow and drooping, and are disposed in groups of
three or four, at intervals along the midrib, the separate leaflets
standing out in different directions. The whole plant is exceedingly
spiny, the midrib and petioles having long, flat, black spines directed
downwards, and the leaflets are also spiny beneath.
The spadix grows from among the leaves on a long stalk and is simply
branched. The spathe is elongate and fusiform, at first erect, but
gradually bends over at the end, forming a hood over the fruit, and is
densely clothed with spines. The fruit is oval with a produced apex, of
a pale yellow colour, and has a thin layer of firm pulp which is
sometimes eaten, but is not very agreeable.
The rind of the leaf-stalks of this palm is used by the Indians for
making baskets. It grows in the dry Catinga forests of the Upper Rio
Negro, often covering large tracts of ground. It has altogether a rather
repulsive and inelegant appearance.
A fruit is shown on the Plate of the natural size, and a spadix reduced
showing the spathe bent over it.
[Illustration:
Pl. XLV.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ASTROCARYUM HUMILE. Ht. 9 Ft.
]
PLATE XLV.
ASTROCARYUM HUMILE, n. sp.
Iú, _Lingoa Geral_.
This species has a stem two or three feet high, or is altogether
stemless like the last. The leaves are six or eight feet long, slender
and pinnate. The leaflets are much broader than in _A. acaule_,
similarly disposed in spreading groups, but not so much drooping. The
midribs and petioles are armed with long, slender, cylindrical spines
pointing in various directions.
The spadices grow from among the leaves and are erect and simply
branched. The spathes are erect or somewhat curved over the fruit, and
clothed with thickly set bristly spines. The fruit is globular, covered
with scattered stiff hairs, and of an orange-red colour. It is not
eatable.
This species is not uncommon in the same situations as the last. The
specimen with a stem was growing in a moister part of the forest. It
seems to be an undescribed species.
The stemless and short-stemmed state of this plant are shown on the
Plate, and a fruit is represented of the natural size.
Genus ATTALEA, _Humboldt_.
Flowers bracteate, male and female in the same spadix, and male in
another spadix, on the same or on a different tree. Spathes double, the
interior one complete and woody. Male flowers with from six to
twenty-four stamens and a small rudimentary pistil. Female flowers with
a short style and three stigmas, and a cup-shaped ring of rudimentary
stamens.
The stems of these palms are generally lofty, cylindrical and smooth,
but there are some stemless species. The leaves of all are very
handsome, large and regularly pinnate; the petioles have the margins of
the sheathing bases often more or less fibrous. The spadix grows from
among the lower leaves, and is simply branched; and the fruit is ovate
or oblong, and has a dry fibrous outer covering.
Sixteen species of these beautiful Palms are known, inhabiting various
parts of South America, from the level of the sea to a height of 4000
feet above it. Their smooth and regularly pinnate leaves render them
very suitable for thatching. One species, the _A. funifera_, produces a
fibre very similar to that of the _Leopoldinia piassaba_, and the stony
seeds from the same tree supply a kind of vegetable ivory.
[Illustration:
Pl. XLVI.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
ATTALEA SPECIOSA Ht. 60 Ft.
]
PLATE XLVI.
ATTALEA SPECIOSA, _Martius_.
Uauassú, _Lingoa Geral_.
This noble palm has the stem fifty or sixty feet high, straight,
cylindrical and nearly smooth. The leaves are very large, terminal and
regularly pinnate. The leaflets are elongate, rigid, closely set
together, and spreading out flat on each side of the midrib. The
sheathing bases of the petioles are persistent for a greater or less
distance down the stem, and in young trees down to the ground, as in the
_Œnocarpus batawá_.
The spadices grow from among the leaves and are large and simply
branched. The fruit is of large size compared with most American palms,
being about three inches long, and from this circumstance it derives its
native name “Uauassú,” signifying “large fruit.”
The foliage of this tree is very extensively used for thatching. The
young plants produce very large leaves before the stem is formed, and it
is in this state that they are generally used. The unopened leaves from
the centre are preferred, as, though they require some preparation, they
produce a more uniform thatch. The leaf is shaken till it falls
partially open, and then each leaflet is torn at the base so as to
remain hanging by its midrib only, which is however quite sufficient to
secure it firmly. They thus hang all at right angles to the midrib of
the leaf, which admits of their being laid in a very regular manner on
the rafters. They are generally known as “palha branca” or “white
thatch,” from the pale yellow colour of the unopened leaves, and are
considered the best covering for houses in places where Bussú cannot be
obtained.
This species grows on the dry forest lands of the Upper Amazon. On the
Rio Negro a stemless species called “Curuá” (_Attalea spectabilis_) is
found and is often used for thatching. On the Lower Amazon and in the
neighbourhood of Pará the _Attalea excelsa_ is not uncommon. It is a
handsome lofty species which grows on lands flooded at high tides, and
is called by the natives Urucurí. The fruit of this tree is burnt, and
the smoke is used to black the newly made india-rubber. Martius says
that the fruit of the _A. speciosa_ is used for this purpose, but that
species is not found in the principal rubber districts, while the _A.
excelsa_ is abundant there.
Several species of _Attalea_ are cultivated in the Palm House at Kew.
Plate III. fig. 1. is a fruit of _Attalea spectabilis_ of the natural
size.
Genus MAXIMILIANA, _Martius_.
Some spadices with only male flowers, others with . male and female
flowers on the same tree. Spathes large, complete, woody. Flowers with
bracts. Male flowers with three or six stamens, and with a minute
rudimentary pistil. Female flowers with a short style and three stigmas,
and rudimentary stamens forming a membranaceous cup.
The stems of these magnificent Palms are tall, erect and smooth. The
leaves are very large and irregularly pinnate. The bases of the petioles
are persistent, often covering the stem quite down to the ground. The
spathe is woody, complete, longitudinally cut and beaked. The spadices
grow from among the lower leaves and are simply branched, but very
densely clustered with the fruit, which is ovate, and has a dry external
covering.
Only three species of this genus are known, all very handsome plants.
One is a native of the West India Islands, one of Brazil, and a third is
common in the Amazon district.
[Illustration:
Pl. XLVII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
MAXIMILIANA REGIA Ht. 80 Ft.
]
PLATE XLVII.
MAXIMILIANA REGIA, _Martius_.
Inajá, _Lingoa Geral_.
This palm has a lofty massive stem, smooth and obscurely ringed. The
leaves are very large, terminal and pinnate. The leaflets are arranged
in groups of three, four or five, at intervals along the midrib, from
which they stand out in different directions, and are very long and
drooping. The bases of the petioles are persistent a short distance down
the stem, and sometimes down to the ground, even when the trees are
forty or fifty feet high.
The spadices are numerous, growing from the bases of the lower leaves.
They are simply branched and very densely clustered. The spathes are
large, spindle-shaped, ventricose and woody, with a long beak. The
fruits are elongate and beaked, with a tough, brown, outer skin, beneath
which is a layer of soft fleshy pulp of an agreeable subacid flavour,
covering a hard stony seed.
The leaves of this tree are truly gigantic. I have measured specimens
which have been cut by the Indians fifty feet long, and these did not
contain the entire petiole, nor were they of the largest size. Owing,
however, to the loose irregular distribution of the leaflets, they do
not produce such an effect of great size as those of the Jupati, which
are more regular. The great woody spathes are used by hunters to cook
meat in, as with water in them they stand the fire well. They are also
used as baskets for carrying earth, and sometimes for cradles. The
fruits are often eaten by the Indians, and are particularly attractive
to monkeys and to some fruit-eating birds.
This magnificent palm is abundant from Pará to the Upper Amazon and the
sources of the Rio Negro. It grows only in the dry virgin forest.
Young trees are growing in the Palm House at Kew, and fruit clusters and
spathes are preserved in the Museum.
Plate III. fig. 3. is a view of the spathe, and fig. 2. represents a
fruit, the natural size.
Genus COCOS, _Linnæus_.
Female flowers less plentiful than the males, and situated below them in
the same spadix. Spathe double, outer small, interior woody. Flowers
with bracts. Male flowers with six stamens and a rudimentary pistil.
Female flowers with three stigmas.
The stems of this genus are lofty, generally cylindrical and smooth. The
leaves are large and regularly pinnate. The spadix is simply branched,
and the fruit is ovate oblong, and with an outer fibrous covering.
Eighteen species of _Cocos_ are known, seventeen being natives of South
America, principally of Brazil, while one only, the well-known
Cocoa-nut, is a native of the Old World, though it is now universally
cultivated in every part of the tropics. Few species of the genus are
found in the Amazon district. They appear to prefer drier and more
elevated countries, some of them reaching an altitude of near 8000 feet
above the sea.
[Illustration:
Pl. XLVIII.
W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.
COCOS NUCIFERA. Ht. 60 Ft.
]
PLATE XLVIII.
COCOS NUCIFERA, _Linnæus_.
Coqueiro, _Portuguese_.
The Cocoa-nut.
The stem of this well-known palm is very smooth, seldom quite erect, and
often much thicker at the bottom. The leaves are large, terminal and
regularly pinnate. The leaflets are rigid, and spread out very flat on
each side of the midrib. From the sheathing bases of the petioles grows
a compact fibrous material resembling in texture the spathe of the
Bussú.
The spadices are produced from among the leaves, and are large and
simply branched. The fruits are very large, and have a dense fibrous
external covering over the well-known cocoa-nut.
This tree is not a native of South America, but as it is generally
cultivated in every part of the tropics, I have given a figure of it.
Its peculiar characteristic is the rigidity of its leaves, which curve
or droop very slightly, and the leaflets spread out with remarkable
flatness and regularity. The stem also is rather massive in accordance
with the immense weight of fruit which it produces, and the whole tree,
though exceedingly handsome, has not that light and feathery appearance
which it is often represented as possessing. It is not impossible,
however, that it may have acquired by its naturalization in America an
aspect differing somewhat from its characteristic features when growing
on the sea-shore, on the coral islands of India and the Pacific.
There it is of the greatest utility to man. It supplies food and drink
and oil. Its fibres are woven into cordage and matting, and it even
furnishes animal as well as vegetable food, herds of swine being fed and
fattened entirely on its fruit.
On the banks of the Amazon, on the contrary, we see at once that it is
in a foreign land. It flourishes indeed with great luxuriance, but no
part of it is applied to any useful purpose, the fruit only being
consumed as an occasional luxury. In the towns and larger villages where
the Portuguese have settled it has been planted, but among the Indians
of the interior it is still quite unknown.
LIST OF THE PALMS DESCRIBED IN THIS WORK, WITH THEIR NATIVE NAMES AND
USES.
_Botanical Name._ _Native Name._ _Uses._
Leopoldinia
pulchra Jará Stem used for fencing, rafters,
&c.
major Jará assú Fruit for making salt.
piassaba Piassába Fibre for cordage, brooms, &c.;
leaves for thatching; fruit
eatable.
Euterpe
oleracea Assaí Fruit for making a drink; stem for
rafters, &c.
catinga Assaí de Catinga Fruit for making a drink.
Œnocarpus
baccaba Baccába Fruit makes a drink and oil;
leaves for thatching.
batawá Patawá Fruit makes a drink; spinous
processes used for making
arrows.
disticha Baccába Leaves for thatching.
minor Baccába miri Fruit makes a drink.
Iriartea
exorhiza Pashiúba Stem split for floors and
ceilings, &c.; air-roots for
graters.
ventricosa Pashiúba Stem split for lances, harpoons,
barriguda floors, &c.; swollen part of
stem for canoes.
setigera Pashiúba miri Stem hollowed for making blowtubes
or Gravatánas.
Raphia
tædigera Jupatí Leaf-stalks split for making
boxes, partitioning houses,
doors, &c.
Mauritia
flexuosa Mirití Fruit makes a drink; fibres of
twisted into string for
hammocks, &c.; leaf-stalks as
the last.
aculeata Caranaí Fruit makes a drink.
gracilis Caranaí Fruit makes a drink.
pumila Caranaí Not known.
caraná Caraná Leaves good for thatch;
leaf-stalks used as those of
_Raphia tædigera_.
Lepidocaryum
tenue Caranaí do Mato None.
Geonoma
multiflora Ubimrána These species and others allied
all have the leaves more or less
used for thatching.
paniculigera Ubim de Cotiwiya
rectifolia Ubimrána
Manicaria
saccifera Bussú Leaves the best for thatching;
spathe for caps, wrappers &c.
Desmoncus
macroacanthus Jacitára Bark makes “tipitis” or elastic
cylinders for squeezing the
grated mandiocca.
Bactris
pectinata Iú These little prickly palms seem
not to be applied to any
particular uses.
n.s. Marayarána
elatior Marayarána
n.s. Unknown
macrocarpa Iú
tenuis Iú
simplicifrons Iú
maraja Marajá Fruit eatable.
integrifolia Iú None.
Guilielma
speciosa Pupúnha Fruit very good and nutritious;
wood very hard, black and
durable.
Acrocomia
lasiospatha Mucujá Fruit eatable.
Astrocaryum
murumurú Murumurú Cattle eat fruit.
gynacanthum Mumbáca None.
vulgare Tucúm Leaf-fibres for cordage.
tucumá Tucumá Fruit eatable.
jauarí Jauarí Nuts for lace-bobbin heads.
aculeatum Marayá None. Others with the same name
have eatable fruit.
acaule Iú Bark of leaf-stalks for baskets.
humile Iú Fruit eatable.
Attalea
speciosa Uauassú Leaves for thatch.
excelsa Urucurí Fruit burnt for smoking rubber.
spectabilis Curúa Leaves for thatch.
Maximiliana
regia Inajá Fruit eatable.
Cocos
nucifera Coqueiro The Cocoa-nut; fruit eatable.
The genera of Palms found in America are thirty-six in number.
Thirty-two of these are entirely confined to it, while only four are
common to the Old and New Worlds, as shown in the following list:—
LIST OF THE AMERICAN GENERA OF PALMS.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Name of Genus. No. of species Species found in Species of
mentioned in this America. American Genera
Work. in the Old World.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Chamedorea 0 23 0
Hyospathe 0 1 0
Morenia 0 2 0
Kunthia 0 1 0
Leopoldinia 3 4 0
Euterpe 3 12 0
Œnocarpus 4 6 0
Oreodoxia 0 6 0
Reinhardtia 0 1 0
Iriartea 4 9 0
Ceroxylon 0 3 0
Raphia 1 1 2
Mauritia 7 8 0
Lepidocaryum 1 2 0
Geonoma 3 33 0
Manicaria 1 1 0
Copernicia 0 6 0
Brahea 0 2 0
Sabal 0 9 0
Trithrinax 0 2 0
Chamærops 0 2 6
Thrinax 0 8 0
Desmoncus 1 14 0
Bactris 9 46 0
Guilielma 1 3 0
Martinezia 0 4 0
Acrocomia 1 8 0
Astrocaryum 8 17 0
Elœis 0 1 1
Attalea 3 16 0
Maximiliana 1 3 0
Orbignia 0 3 0
Syagrus 0 5 0
Diplothemium 0 5 0
Jubæa 0 1 0
Cocos 1 17 1
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Totals 52 285 10
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Palm trees of the Amazon : and their uses" ***
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