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Palm trees of the Amazon and their uses

Chapter 55: PLATE XXXIX. Astrocaryum gynacanthum, Martius.
By Alfred Russel Wallace
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About This Book

The work surveys numerous Amazonian palm species through detailed descriptions and forty-eight plates, focusing on morphological characters—stems, roots, leaves, inflorescences, and fruit—to aid identification. The author records native names and documents how local peoples employ palms for food, fibers, brooms, oils, and building materials, while noting variation in form and habitat distribution. Botanical remarks on genera, species distinctions, and geographic range accompany personal field observations and practical uses. Several taxa are illustrated from original drawings and compared with specimens in botanical collections to support accurate identification and application.

PLATE XXXIX.
Astrocaryum gynacanthum, Martius.

Mumbáca, Lingoa Geral.

This species has a rather slender stem about fifteen feet high, covered with long, flat, black spines, arranged in regular rings and pointing downwards. The leaves are terminal, rather large and pinnate. The leaflets spread regularly in one plane, and are elongate and acute, the terminal pair being rather shorter and broader. The bases of the petioles are broadly sheathing, and are all densely spiny.

The spadices grow from the bases of the lower leaves, and are erect when in flower, but hang down with the ripe fruit, which grows in a dense cluster at the end of the long stalk which is very spiny, as is also the elongate persistent spathe. The fruit is small, ovate, of a red colour and not eatable.

This palm grows in the virgin forests of the Upper Rio Negro, and a nearly allied or perhaps identical species is common about the city of Pará.

Pl. XL.

W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp.

ASTROCARYUM VULGARE. Ht. 50 Ft.