Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/141

 *[Footnote: and Echeveria),—acknowledged to us that during several years they had not been able to obtain these flowers for examination. These difficulties sufficiently explain what would have been incomprehensible to me before my voyage, namely, that although during our two years' stay up to the present time, we have, indeed, discovered more than 20 different species of palms, we have as yet been only able to describe systematically 12. "How interesting a work might be produced by a traveller in South America who should occupy himself exclusively with the study of palms, and should make drawings of the spathe, spadix, inflorescence, and fruit, all of the size of nature!" (I wrote this many years before the Brazilian travels of Martius and Spix, and the admirable and excellent work of Martius on Palms.) "There is considerable uniformity in the shape of the leaves of palms; they are generally either pinnate (feathery, or divided like the plume of a feather);—or else palmate or palmo-digitate (of a fan-like form); the leaf-stalk (petiolus), is in some species without spines, in others sharply toothed (serrato-spinosus). The form of the leaf in Caryota urens and Martinezia caryotifolia, (which we saw on the banks of the Orinoco and Atabapo, and again in the Andes, at the pass of Quindiu, 3000 Fr. (3197 English) feet above the level of the sea), is exceptional and almost unique among palms, as is the form of the leaf of the Gingko among trees. The port and physiognomy of palms have a grandeur of character very difficult to convey by words. The stem, shaft, or caudex, is generally simple and undivided, but in extremely rare exceptions divides into branches in the]*