Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/139

 *[Footnote: described species. In truth, the difficulty of procuring the flowers of palms is greater than can readily be imagined. We have felt it so much the more from having especially directed our attention to Palms, Grasses, Cyperaceæ, Juncaceæ, Cryptogamous Plants, and such other objects as have been least studied hitherto. Most species of palms flower only once a year, in the neighbourhood of the Equator in the months of January and February. But how often is it impossible for travellers to be precisely at that season in places where palms are principally found. In many species of palms the flowers last only so few days that one almost always arrives too late, and finds the fertilization completed and the male blossoms gone. Frequently only three or four species of palms are found in areas of 2000 square German geographical miles (3200 English geographical square miles). How is it possible during the short flowering season to visit the different places where palms abound: the Missions on the Rio Caroni, the Morichales at the mouth of the Orinoco, the valley of Caura and Erevato, the banks of the Atabapo and the Rio Negro, and the side of the Duida Mountain? Add to this the difficulty of reaching the flowers, when, in the dense forests, or on the swampy river banks, (as on the Temi and Tuamini), one sees them hanging from stems above 60 feet high, and armed with formidable spines. A traveller, when preparing to leave Europe on an expedition in which natural history is one of his leading objects, flatters himself with the thoughts of shears or curved blades fastened to long poles, with which he imagines he will be able to reach and cut down whatever he desires; he]*