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Show ANNOTATIONS A D ADDITIONS. 319 "In Palms with pinnate foliage, the leaf-stalks either proceed (as in the Cocoa-nut, the Date, and the Palma Real del Sinu) from the dry, rough, woody part of the stem j or, as in the Palma Real de la Havana (Oreodoxa regia), seen and admired by Columbus, there rises upon the rough part of the stem a grass-green, smooth, thinner shaft, like a column placed upon a column, and from this the leaf-stalks spring. In fan-p'llms, 'foliis palmatis,' the leafy crown (as in the Moriche and the Palma sombrero de la Havana) often rests on a previous bed of dry leaves, a circumstance which gives to the tree a sombre and melancholy appearance. In some umbrellapalms, the crown consists of very few leaves, which rise upwards, carried on very slender petioles or foot-stalks (as in Miraguama). "The form and color of the fruits of Palms also offer much more variety than is commonly believed in Europe. Mauritia flexuosa bears egg-shaped fruits, whose scaly, brown, and shining surface, gives them something of the appearance of young fir-cones. What a difference between the enormous triangular cocoa-nut, the soft fleshy berries of the date, and the small, hard fruits of the Corozo ! But among the fruits of palms, none equal in beauty those of the Pirijao (Pihiguao of S. Fernando de Atabapo and S. Balthasar) j they are egg-shaped, mealy, and usually without seeds, two or three inches thick, and of a golden color, which on one side is overspread with crimson j and these richly colored fruits, crowded together in a bunch, like grapes, are pendent from the summits of majestic palm trees." I have already spoken at p. 175, of these beautiful fruits, of which there are seventy or eighty in a bunch, and which can be prepared as food in a variety of ways, like plantains and potatoes. In some species of Palms the flower sheath, or spathe surrounding the spadix and the flowers, opens suddenly with an audible sound. Richard Schomburgk (Reisen in Britisch Guiana, th. i. s. 55) has, like myself, observed this phenomenon in the flowering of the Oreodoxa oleracea. This first opening of the flowers of Palms, accompanied by sound, recalls the vernal Dithyrambus of Pindar, and the moment when, in Argive N emea, "the first opening shoot of the date-palm proclaims the arrival of balmy spring.'' (Cosmos, bd. ii. s. 10 j Eng. ed. p. _10.) |