The stems of these magnificent Palms are tall, erect and smooth. The leaves are very large and irregularly pinnate. The bases of the petioles are persistent, often covering the stem quite down to the ground. The spathe is woody, complete, longitudinally cut and beaked. The spadices grow from among the lower leaves and are simply branched, but very densely clustered with the fruit, which is ovate, and has a dry external covering. Only three species of this genus are known, all very handsome plants. One is a native of the West India Islands, one of Brazil, and a third is common in the Amazon district. [Illustration: Pl. XLVII. W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp. MAXIMILIANA REGIA Ht. 80 Ft. ] PLATE XLVII. MAXIMILIANA REGIA, _Martius_. Inajá, _Lingoa Geral_. This palm has a lofty massive stem, smooth and obscurely ringed. The leaves are very large, terminal and pinnate. The leaflets are arranged in groups of three, four or five, at intervals along the midrib, from which they stand out in different directions, and are very long and drooping. The bases of the petioles are persistent a short distance down the stem, and sometimes down to the ground, even when the trees are forty or fifty feet high. The spadices are numerous, growing from the bases of the lower leaves. They are simply branched and very densely clustered. The spathes are large, spindle-shaped, ventricose and woody, with a long beak. The fruits are elongate and beaked, with a tough, brown, outer skin, beneath which is a layer of soft fleshy pulp of an agreeable subacid flavour, covering a hard stony seed. The leaves of this tree are truly gigantic. I have measured specimens which have been cut by the Indians fifty feet long, and these did not contain the entire petiole, nor were they of the largest size. Owing, however, to the loose irregular distribution of the leaflets, they do not produce such an effect of great size as those of the Jupati, which are more regular. The great woody spathes are used by hunters to cook meat in, as with water in them they stand the fire well. They are also used as baskets for carrying earth, and sometimes for cradles. The fruits are often eaten by the Indians, and are particularly attractive to monkeys and to some fruit-eating birds. This magnificent palm is abundant from Pará to the Upper Amazon and the sources of the Rio Negro. It grows only in the dry virgin forest. Young trees are growing in the Palm House at Kew, and fruit clusters and spathes are preserved in the Museum. Plate III. fig. 3. is a view of the spathe, and fig. 2. represents a fruit, the natural size. Genus COCOS, _Linnæus_. Female flowers less plentiful than the males, and situated below them in the same spadix. Spathe double, outer small, interior woody. Flowers with bracts. Male flowers with six stamens and a rudimentary pistil. Female flowers with three stigmas.