Palm trees of the Amazon and their uses

This species has the stem about an inch in diameter and ten or twelve feet high, distinctly jointed, smooth and reed-like, but with a few spines in small groups at the joints. The leaves are terminal, of moderate size and rather interruptedly pinnate. The leaflets often grow in pairs and are broad, narrowed at the base and have the midrib produced at the point, the terminal pair being the largest. The petioles and sheaths are thickly set with whitish flat prickles.

The spadices are small, five- or six-branched, and rather long-stalked. The spathe is small, smooth and persistent. The fruit is oval, with a produced apex, large in proportion to the tree, of a reddish or yellowish olive colour, and not eatable, the outer covering being dry and woolly.

The smooth reed-like stem of this species resembles those of the Geonomas, and it is also remarkable for the large size of its fruit. It grows on the dry sandy soil of the Catinga forests of the Upper Rio Negro. It seems most nearly allied to B. mitis of Martius.

A fruit is represented on the Plate of the natural size, and a leaflet reduced one-fourth to show the peculiar form.