The fibre imported into this country has been supposed to be produced only by the _Attalea funifera_, a species not found in the Amazon district. In the London Journal of Botany for 1849, Sir W. Hooker gave some account of the material, and of the tree producing it; stating that he had received the fruit of the tree with the fibre from a mercantile house connected with Brazil, and that the fruit was that of the _Attalea funifera_. This species is mentioned by Martius as furnishing a fibre used for cordage and other purposes in Southern Brazil, and he states that it is called “piaçaba”; so that the Indian name is applied to two distinct trees producing a similar material in different localities; and the two having been brought to England under the same name and from not very distant ports of the same country, were naturally supposed to be produced by the same tree. The greater part, if not all of the Piassaba now imported, comes, however, from the Rio Negro, where several hundred tons are cut annually and sent to Pará, from which place scarcely a vessel sails for England without its forming a part of her cargo. GENUS EUTERPE, _Gærtner_. Male and female flowers intermingled on the same spadix, the former more abundant in the upper part of the branches, the latter in the lower. Spathe entire, membranaceous, fusiform and deciduous. Flowers with bracts, male with six stamens and a rudimentary pistil, female with three sessile stigmas. Spadix simply branched, spreading horizontally. These are very elegant palms; their stems are lofty, slender, smooth and faintly ringed. The leaves are terminal, pinnate, regular, and form a graceful feathery plume. The bases of the petioles are sheathing for a long distance down the stem, forming a thick column three or four feet long, of a green or reddish colour. The spadices, three or four in number, spring from beneath the leaves, and the spathes are very deciduous, falling to the ground as soon as they open. The fruit is small, globose, at first green, then violet or black, and consists of a thin edible pulp covering the hard seed. Twelve species are known, inhabiting the West Indies, Mexico and South America, and there appear to be three species in the Amazon district, two of which I have figured. Some prefer marshy grounds near the level of the sea, others extend up the mountains to a height of 4000 feet. [Illustration: Pl. VII. W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp. EUTERPE OLERACEA. Ht. 60 Ft. ] PLATE VII. EUTERPE OLERACEA, _Martius_. Assaí, _Lingoa Geral_.