Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/144

 *[Footnote: (85 to 106 English feet high), adorns the cataracts of Atures and Maypures, and is occasionally found also on the lonely banks of the Cassiquiare. The smooth slender stems of the Jagua, rising to between 64 and 75 English feet, appear above the dense mass of foliage of other kinds of trees from amidst which they spring like raised colonnades, their airy summits contrasting beautifully with the thickly-leaved species of Ceiba, and with the forest of Laurineæ, Calophyllum, and different species of Amyris which surround them. The leaves of the Jagua, which are few in number (scarcely so many as seven or eight), are sixteen or seventeen feet long, and rise almost vertically into the air; their extremities are curled like plumes; the ultimate divisions or leaflets, having only a thin grass-like parenchyma, flutter lightly and airily round the slowly balancing central leaf-stalks. In all palms the inflorescence springs from the trunk itself, and below the place where the leaves originate; but the manner in which this takes place modifies the physiognomic character. In a few species only (as the Corozo del Sinu), the spathe (or sheath enclosing the flowers and fruits), rises vertically, and the fruits stand erect, forming a kind of thyrsus, like the fruits of the Bromelia: in most species of palms the spathes (which are sometimes smooth and sometimes rough and armed with formidable spines) are pendent; in a few species the male flowers are of a dazzling whiteness, and in such cases the flower-covered spadix, when fully developed, shines from afar. In most species of palms the male flowers are yellowish, closely crowded, and appear almost withered when they disengage themselves from the spathe.]*