In the tidal districts about Pará, the massive trunks of these trees are often used to form a raised pathway across the expanse of soft mud generally left at low water between “terra firma” and the water’s edge. A smooth and slippery cylinder is certainly not the best thing that could be devised for this purpose, but as it is the most easily procured and the least expensive it is proportionately common, and on paying a visit to many a Brazilian country house, should you arrive at low water, you will have no other means of getting ashore. The Miriti is a social palm, covering large tracts of tide-flooded lands on the Lower Amazon. In these places there is no underwood to break the view among interminable ranges of huge columnar stems rising undisturbed by branch or leaf to the height of eighty or a hundred feet,—a vast natural temple which does not yield in grandeur and sublimity to those of Palmyra or Athens. Of the age of these noble trees we have no knowledge, but it is remarkable how uniform they appear in size, there often being not a single young tree over a considerable extent of ground, particularly in places now flooded daily by the tide. One would therefore imagine that the present trees sprung up when the ground was more elevated than at present, and that it has since gradually sunk (or the waters risen) till the conditions have become unfavourable for the growth of young plants, though not hurtful to those which had already attained a certain age. Whether such is the true explanation of the phænomenon can only be decided by continued observation on the spot. Besides this species which is mentioned by Martius as occurring at Pará, my friend Mr. Spruce ascertained that another closely allied palm, the _Mauritia vinifera_, also occurs there. On the Upper Amazon and Rio Negro a palm is found supposed to be the _M. flexuosa_, but it is not so lofty a tree, which may perhaps be accounted for by its growing on annually instead of diurnally flooded lands. It is believed to be the same species which Humboldt observed on the Serra Duida. The Itá palm growing on the delta of the Orinoco is also thought to be the same species. On the river Uaupes, a branch of the Upper Rio Negro, I observed an allied species called by the natives “Caraná assu.” The stem was smooth and much more slender and waving, and the leaves much smaller. Plants of the _Mauritia flexuosa_ are growing in the Palm House at Kew. On Plate XVII. a single leaf is represented, showing the flabellate form produced by abbreviation of the midrib. Plate II. fig. 2. is a fruit of the natural size. [Illustration: Pl. XVIII. W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp. MAURITIA CARANA. Ht. 40 Ft. ] PLATE XVIII. MAURITIA CARANA, n. sp. Caraná, _Lingoa Geral_.