This is the species known as the Baccába at Pará, where the _Œ. baccába_ is not found. It is quite distinct from the allied species by the leaves being distichous, or arranged nearly in one plane on each side of the stem, which gives it a very peculiar aspect, unlike any other Palm. On my return to Pará from the interior, I was suffering so much from ague, as to be unable to go in search of a specimen of this tree to figure as I had intended. This, like all other species of the genus, grows in dry and rather elevated forest land. Genus IRIARTEA, _Ruiz_ et _Pavon_. Female flowers few, interspersed among the males, bracteate. Spathe membranous, incomplete. Male flowers with from twelve to fifty stamens and the rudiments of a pistil. Female flowers with three sessile stigmas. These singular and beautiful Palms have lofty, smooth, cylindrical or ventricose stems, very faintly ringed. The roots grow more or less above ground. The leaves are terminal and pinnate, and the leaflets are somewhat triangular, notched, often twisted or curled, and have radiating nerves. The sheathing bases form a column as in _Euterpe_. The spadices grow from beneath the leaves and are simply branched and drooping. The spathes vary in number and size; they are membranous, and fall off before the fruit ripens. The fruit is oval, of moderate size, generally of a red or yellow colour, and the pulpy part is bitter and uneatable. The stems of this genus increase in thickness within certain limits, differing from most other palms, which, when the stem is once formed, only increase in height. Nine species of this genus are known, all natives of South America. Four of them occur in the Amazon district, three in Bolivia, one in Venezuela, and one near Bogotá, reaching a height above the sea of 5000 to 8000 feet. [Illustration: Pl. XII. W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp. IRIARTEA EXORHIZA. Ht. 60 Ft. ] PLATE XII. IRIARTEA EXORHIZA, _Martius_. Pashiúba, _Lingoa Geral_. This curious and beautiful tree is common in the forests about Pará and on the banks of the Amazon. It reaches fifty or sixty feet in height, with the stem moderately thick and very smooth, there being scarcely any rings or scars left by the fallen leaves. The leaves are large and pinnate, with the leaflets triangular and very deeply notched, standing out at different angles with the midrib. The leaves curve over gracefully, and the character and aspect of the foliage is very different from that of most other palms. The column formed by the sheathing leaf-stalks is swollen at the base and of a deep green colour. The spadices are three or four in number, growing rather upwards from the stem below the leaf-column. They are small and simply branched, and bear small oval red fruits about the size of a damson, the outer pulp of which is bitter and only eaten by some birds.