The first species is _Oreodoxa acuminata_, referred by recent authors to _Euterpe_ but probably constituting a distinct genus. The trunk is erect, cylindrical, very smooth, and attains a height of from 15 to 18 metres; the “root” throws out suckers at the base of the trunk. The fronds are pinnate, with opposite or alternate, very long, ensiform, acuminate pinnae, replicate at base. The strongly convolute young leaves form a green apex for the trunk, five feet high. Spathes cinereous, folded in at the base of the leaf-sheaths at the top of the trunk, univalvate, deciduous; spadix erect, much branched, having the appearance of a broom. The heart of the bundle of leaf-bases, about two feet long and three inches thick is eaten as a salad, with oil and vinegar. It is also stated that the deciduous boat-shaped spathes serve as reservoirs of rain-water which is long retained in the cool shade cast by the trees. Birds and beasts, and human natives as well, are said to be dependent at times upon the liquid thus stored, since in the regions where the palm grows there are at times no other means of procuring water. The forests of the high mountain chain of Buena Vista in the province of Caracas are the native home of the species. It thus appears that in addition to the structural differences _Oreodoxa acuminata_ occupies quite a different place in nature from that of the more thoroughly tropical species commonly referred to that genus, and the stoloniferous habit also indicates a different ecology. The second of the original species of _Oreodoxa_ is now referred to the genus _Catoblastus_. It is a somewhat smaller tree from 12 to 15 metres high, with a generally similar habit, and is also stoloniferous, but the pinnae are broad, cuneiform and praemorse, or irregularly truncate as in the species generally referred to _Martinezia_. The drupaceous fruit is grayish and the pulp is only slightly succulent; seed the size of a pigeon’s egg, its exterior brown, marbled with numerous veins. In the characters of the spathe the arrangement of the fruit and the edible quality of the heart of the leaf-cluster, as well as in the formation of lateral off-shoot this species is said to be similar to the first. 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.