Part 7

Botanists are not yet agreed upon the methods of dealing with complications like the present in regard to the names of plants, but it appears certain that those who do not recognize Oreodoxa as a genus distinct from those admitted in the more recent works on palms must associate it either with Euterpe or Catoblastus. The latter name it would in that case replace, being much older. Moreover, unless we are prepared to disregard Willdenow’s statements concerning the stoloniferous trunk, the simple spathe and the hermaphrodite flowers, to say nothing of many minor points of circumstantial evidence, there is no scientific warrant for applying the name Oreodoxa to the noble Antillean species with which it has been universally associated.

The dried specimens which Willdenow studied were supplemented by notes of field observation by a court gardener, who was evidently also a botanist of some experience, to whom Willdenow refers as his “friend.” The living colors are described with considerable detail throughout the entire paper, which renders noteworthy the fact that the spathes are stated to be cinereous. This is in agreement with species of Euterpe which have membranous spathes, but indicates a wide difference from the West Indian trees where the spathes are thick and fleshy and remain vivid green until they open and fall away.

The name Roystonea has been given to this ornament of the Puerto Rico landscape as a respectful compliment to General Roy Stone, the American engineer officer who secured the admiration of the people of Puerto Rico by his fearlessness and conspicuous energy in the Adjuntas road-building campaign which flanked the line of Spanish defenses, and whose subsequent interest in the improvement of the island will undoubtedly affect its future history.

=Roystonea Borinquena= sp. nov. Plate 45. f. 2.

Trunk normally fusiform, 30–60 cm. thick, 12–18 m. high. Leaf segments 4–4.4 cm. in width. Inflorescence robust, compact, twice branched, the branches numerous and coarse, ferruginous, pubescent. Fruits long-oval, yellowish brown at maturity. Seeds 8 mm. by 6.3 mm., flattened about the hilum, rounded below; wall of endocarp smooth, adherent over a small area.

The royal palm of Puerto Rico differs from that of Cuba in having the trunk generally shorter, more robust and more distinctly fusiform. The inflorescence is twice branched, with the branches more densely clustered, coarser and darker colored than those of the Cuban royal palm, Roystonea regia. They are also covered with a slightly hispid brown pubescence while Cuban specimens are much smoother and more pallid. The difference of habit, to judge from photographs of the Cuban species, is most apparent when the trees have grown in the open, as when planted in avenues or along roadsides. In Puerto Rico, trees which are obliged to compete with other vegetation are often tall, slender and unsymmetrical. The typical form is shown in our photograph (no. 250) taken in the plaza of Juana Diaz.

Martius gives the width of the pinnae of the Cuban royal palm as from 8 to 12 lines. Cuban specimens show as much as one inch and a quarter, while others from Porto Rico are half an inch wider (44 mm.) of somewhat coarser texture and with more widely separated secondary veins. The fruits of the Puerto Rico palm are a deep yellowish brown when ripe, while those of the Cuban are said to become violet or bluish black. According to Martius, the fruits of the Cuban species are 6 lines by 4, but dried specimens show no such discrepancy of proportions and measure only about 8.5 mm. by 7.5 mm.

In Puerto Rico the fresh fruits are also much longer than broad, perhaps even more slender than the figures given for the Cuban; when dry they still appear somewhat longer and larger than the latter.

The seeds of Roystonea Borinquena differ in several particulars from those of the Cuban species. In shape they are longer and less spherical, measuring 8 by 6.3 by 5.5 mm. instead of 7.8 by 7 by 6 mm.; the side bearing the hilum is much flattened and even slightly concave; the fibers radiating from the hilum are longer, and the corner between the hilum and the micropyle is evenly rounded, not sharply squared and prominent as in R. regia. On the back of the seed the smooth inner wall of the endocarp is closely adherent over a small area, while in Cuban seeds this wall remains attached over nearly the whole side and is furthermore distinctly rugose-coriaceous on the surface, and has a distinct sulcus in the median line.

The royal palm is not only the more conspicuous and characteristic natural object in most parts of Puerto Rico, but it probably exceeds the cocoanut in total economic importance. The most useful part is the yagua or sheathing base of the leaf, with which a large proportion of the houses of the poorer classes are thatched or sided, or both.

The royal palm is one of the wild species which has been distinctly advantaged by human interference in natural conditions. It is a general fact that outside the climbing species palms are not successful in competing with tropical forest vegetation. Originally the royal palm and the corozo were probably confined to the more rugged slopes of the lower limestone hills where they both still retain a foothold in places where the natural growth seems never to have been cleared away. But the vast majority of royal palms now in existence in Puerto Rico stand on land which has been cultivated at one time or another, and where the palms were able to secure a foothold before the competition of other plants became too strong.

The discovery of root tubercles on a young plant of this species has been noted in the introductory statement. These tubercles though small in size are very numerous upon the smaller roots. In shape they are mostly oval and symmetrical. The larger are about 2 mm. in length though our natural-size photograph shows several fusiform or clavate bodies from 5 to 10 mm. long and as much as 2 mm. thick. The color of the roots and tubercles is white.

The royal palm of Florida is commonly referred to Oreodoxa regia, though with very doubtful propriety. Apparently on account of its great size, Cooper (Smithsonian Report 1860: 440. 1861) was inclined to identify it with Oreodoxa oleracea which had also been reported from the Bahamas. The inflorescence and seeds collected by Curtis on the western borders of the everglades (no. 2676) are, however, obviously not those of R. oleracea but are much more similar to those of R. regia. The branches of the inflorescence are much longer and more lax than those of the species of Cuba and Puerto Rico, from which they also differ in the frequent development of tertiary branches, in this respect resembling Roystonea oleracea. The fruits do not resemble those of R. oleracea but are closely similar to those of the other species though somewhat smaller and more nearly spherical. Several reliable witnesses are on record to the effect that the trees are from 28 to 35 metres high and as much as 45 metres has been claimed, while among the royal palms of Cuba and Puerto Rico 18 metres is the commonly recognized limit of size. Mr. C. T. Simpson, of the U. S. National Museum, states that the palms of southwestern Florida lack the conspicuous bulge so characteristic in the trunks of the Puerto Ricon trees, and that they grow almost in reach of tide-water, while the natural habitat of the Puerto Rico species is evidently the limestone hills. In view of these differences it seems preferable to treat the Florida royal palm as a distinct species, for which the name =Roystonea Floridana= is proposed.

Mr. Simpson also informs me that the royal palms seen on the islands off the coast of Honduras had the size and habit of those of Florida and not the relatively stunted appearance of those seen by him in Hayti and Jamaica. This fact is suggestive in connection with the popular idea that the palms of Florida are to be looked upon as recent arrivals from Cuba. Instead it seems more reasonable to believe that the royal palm of Puerto Rico, like the species of Thrinax of that island, is a remnant of the flora of the time when the limestone hills were keys and hammocks like those of southern Florida, and relatively poor in vegetation able to crowd out the palms.

=Acrista= gen. nov.

Trunk slender, of uniform diameter. Pinnae horizontal, appendiculate. Inflorescences distinctly infrafoliar; spathes two, the outer short, the inner long and slender. Spadix once-branched, the branches coarse, tapering. Fruits with stigma lateral, seed deeply ruminate, embryo basal.

Related to Roystonea, but differing in the more slender habit, the once-branched inflorescence, the basal embryo, and in having the leaflets in one plane. The color of the foliage is also considerably lighter than that of the royal palm so that from a distance the general appearance suggests the cocoanut rather than the royal palm.

There is also some resemblance between the foliage of Acrista and Cocops, but the absence of sheathing leaf-bases in the latter genus will enable even young specimens to be separated. Moreover the leaf-divisions of Cocops are much narrower and those at the end of the leaf are not so much shortened as in Acrista.

Further differences from Roystonea are to be found, such as the much smaller size and the larger roots, which are tuberculate and inclined to become superficial like those of the llume palm. The sheathing leaf-bases are not as long proportionately as in Roystonea, and there is a distinct formation of fibers, although the texture is flimsy. The outer sheaths do not split off and fall away as promptly as in Roystonea but several dead ones sometimes hang from about the base of the crown. Although the sheath is longer than in Aeria the fibers are much better developed, there being but a few membranous shreds in Aeria, and no distinct fibers at all.

Among the mountains between Cayey and Guayama many summits are covered with the palma de sierra, probably in places which have never been cleared. A few of the palms follow down the steeper uncultivated ravines. From a distance the crowns suggest royal palms but a closer view renders the difference apparent. There is also no suggestion of the bulging trunk of Roystonea. In height the palma de sierra probably does not exceed the royal palm.

The tips of leaflets of young leaves are connected by two brittle red strands both of which lie on the mesial face, one along the edge, the other near the middle. The tips of the leaflets are of the same material and are sometimes persistent as long corneous appendices like those of the cultivated Howea.

The generic name Euterpe Gaertner, which is commonly applied to a considerable series of American palms related to the present, was in reality established for the Malayan genus for which the name Calyptrocalyx Blume is now in use, Pinanga silvestris globosa Rumphius being cited by both Gaertner and Blume as the original, in the one case, of Euterpe globosa, and in the other of Calyptrocalyx spicatus. The origin and identity of the seed described and figured by Gaertner have not been established, and seem likely to remain in doubt; but in describing Calyptrocalyx, Blume argued that the generic name should remain with the seeds studied by Gaertner and declared that these did not belong to any Malayan species but to some of the arecoid palms of the Mascarene Islands. This suggestion seems not to have been disposed of by Martius or others, but the fact that Gaertner’s fruits showed an apical stigma seems to exclude them from the American group with which the generic name has been associated.

In making use of the name Euterpe for Brazilian palms Martius cites Gaertner as author of the genus and states that it is of worldwide distribution in the tropics. Gaertner’s E. globosa is placed as a synonym of E. oleracea Martius, and Jacquin’s older name Areca oleracea stands in the same relation to Euterpe edulis Martius, thus rendering Euterpe oleracea Martius a specific homonym. Subsequently Martius claims the genus Euterpe for himself and expresses doubt whether it is the same as that named by Gaertner, while Drude in Engler and Prantl’s Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien says “Euterpe Mart. (nicht Gaertn.).” Martius also admits that the West Indian Areca oleracea Jacquin is distinct from the Brazilian species of Euterpe, and redescribes it under the name Oreodoxa oleracea.

A further complication connected with Acrista was brought to light by finding that specimens collected by Sintenis (no. 1525) in the Luquillo Mountains in northeastern Puerto Rico and distributed from the Berlin Botanical Garden as Oreodoxa oleracea belong to the present genus, together with others collected in Martinique by Hahn (no. 805) and identified at Paris. With the last, the local name choux palmiste is given, the same which Jacquin noted in the original description of his Areca oleracea (Stirp. Am. 278. 1763). Moreover, it can scarcely be determined from Jacquin’s description whether he was dealing with a Roystonea or an Acrista or with both, though his claim that his was the tallest palm of the Antilles might hold the name for the Roystonea.

It might then be argued by some that Miller’s species, Palma altissima constituted a segregate from Jacquin’s oleracea and that the latter name is available for the Acrista of Martinique, whether identical or not with that of Puerto Rico. But with a possible doubt between the Acrista and the Roystonea there can scarcely be a justification for the use of the same name for a third South American species or a fourth West Indian.

As a means of decreasing the confusion it may be suggested that as neither the generic nor the specific name of the Brazilian palm which Martius called Euterpe oleracea (Hist. Nat. Palm. 2: 29) is available, the name =Catis Martiana= may be proposed, the generic designation having reference to the drooping pinnae characteristic of the present species and several of its South American relatives.

=Acrista monticola= sp. nov. Plate 44.

Trunk smooth, 10 to 15 m. high, perhaps taller, from 12 to 15 cm. in diameter, with distinct ring-like leaf-scars and internodes, light brownish or appearing grayish with bark lichens.