This species is unknown in the neighbourhood of Pará and on the Lower Amazon. It first occurs near Villa Nova, about five hundred miles up the river, where the tidal rise and fall of the water ceases and the annual floods rise to a considerable height. From this point upwards it is very abundant, growing everywhere on the margins of the rivers, in places which are for six or eight months in the year under water. It is never found beyond the limits of the floods, and in travelling up the Rio Negro it is for hundreds of miles the only species of _Astrocaryum_ met with. [Illustration: Pl. XLIII. W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp. ASTROCARYUM ACULEATUM Ht. 20 Ft. ] PLATE XLIII. ASTROCARYUM ACULEATUM? _Meyer._ Marayá, _Lingoa Geral_. This small species has the stem from fifteen to twenty feet high and about two inches in diameter, with obscure rings of spines at irregular intervals. The leaves are terminal, rather large and regularly pinnate. The leaflets are narrow, rigid and scarcely drooping, with the terminal pair broader. The midrib and leaflets are smooth, but the bases and sheaths of the petioles are very prickly. The spadices grow from below the leaves and are very small and simply branched. The spathes are small, ovate, swollen, erect, persistent and very prickly. The trees were not found in fruit. This tree agrees pretty well with Dr. Martius’ description of _A. aculeatum_. It grows in the virgin forest of the Upper Rio Negro. [Illustration: Pl. XLIV. W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp. ASTROCARYUM ACAULE Ht. 9 Ft. ] PLATE XLIV. ASTROCARYUM ACAULE, _Martius_. Iú, _Lingoa Geral_. This palm never has any stem, the leaves springing at once from the ground. They are eight or ten feet long, slender and pinnate. The leaflets are very narrow and drooping, and are disposed in groups of three or four, at intervals along the midrib, the separate leaflets standing out in different directions. The whole plant is exceedingly spiny, the midrib and petioles having long, flat, black spines directed downwards, and the leaflets are also spiny beneath. The spadix grows from among the leaves on a long stalk and is simply branched. The spathe is elongate and fusiform, at first erect, but gradually bends over at the end, forming a hood over the fruit, and is densely clothed with spines. The fruit is oval with a produced apex, of a pale yellow colour, and has a thin layer of firm pulp which is sometimes eaten, but is not very agreeable. The rind of the leaf-stalks of this palm is used by the Indians for making baskets. It grows in the dry Catinga forests of the Upper Rio Negro, often covering large tracts of ground. It has altogether a rather repulsive and inelegant appearance. A fruit is shown on the Plate of the natural size, and a spadix reduced showing the spathe bent over it.