Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/147

 *[Footnote: speaking, we are only acquainted, as has been already remarked, with a very small number of species of Palms belonging to that quarter of the globe.

Palms afford, next to Coniferæ and species of Eucalyptus belonging to the family of Myrtaceæ, examples of the greatest loftiness of stature attained by any of the members of the vegetable kingdom. Of the Cabbage Palm (Areca oleracea), stems have been seen from 150 to 160 French (160 to 170 English) feet high. (Aug. de Saint-Hilaire, Morphologie végétale, 1840, p. 176.) The Wax-palm, our Ceroxylon andicola, discovered by us on the Andes between Ibague and Carthago, on the Montaña de Quindiu, attains the immense height of 160 to 180 French (170 to 192 English) feet. I was able to measure with exactness the prostrate trunks which had been cut down and were lying in the forest. Next to the Wax-palm, Oreodoxa Sancona, which we found in flower near Roldanilla in the Cauca Valley, and which affords a very hard and excellent building wood, appeared to me to be the tallest of American palms. The circumstance that notwithstanding the enormous quantity of fruits produced by a single Palm tree, the number of individuals of each species which are found in a wild state is not very considerable, can only be explained by the frequently abortive development of the fruits (and consequent absence of seeds), and by the voracity of their numerous assailants, belonging to all classes of the animal world. Yet although I have said that the wild individuals are not very numerous, there are in the basin of the Orinoco entire tribes of men who live for several months of the year on the fruits]*