Palm trees of the Amazon and their uses

This species has a tall, erect and slender stem reaching about forty or fifty feet in height and armed with numerous, long, conical, woody spines arranged in rings. The leaves are rather small with the leaflets rigid and very slightly drooping at the tips, and united at the base for about one-eighth of their length. The petioles are long and slender and are deciduous, the entire leaf falling away from the stem. The midrib and edges of the leaflets are armed with weak spinules. The spadices are small and grow somewhat erect so as to be partly concealed among the leaves, and the fruit is oval and rather small.

This species grows on the Upper Rio Negro and Atabapo, in marshes, with a rocky subsoil, and in the moist parts of the Catinga forest. The Caraná, common in the swamps (not in the tide-flooded lands) about Pará, is very closely allied or may be the same species.