Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/145

 *[Footnote: "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; 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-palms, "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 umbrella-palms the crown consists of very few leaves, which rise upwards, carried on very slender petioles or foot-stalks (as in Miraguama).

"The form and colour 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); they are egg-shaped, mealy, and usually without seeds, two or three inches thick, and of a golden colour, which on one side is overspread with crimson; and these richly coloured fruits, crowded together in a bunch, like grapes, are pendent from the summits of majestic palm]*