vegetable creation.

Now, my boy reader, I have not the slightest doubt but that you, too,
think the palms the fairest forms of the vegetable creation. I have not
the shadow of a doubt that your heart beats joyfully at the very word
"palm;" that you love to gaze at one of these stately trees, and that
you would give all your pocket-money for an afternoon's ramble through a
real palm-wood. Would you not? Yes. I am sure of it. Now I could
tell you a great deal about palms if I would; and I would, too, if my
space and time allowed me, but neither will, alas! Why, if I were only
to give you even the shortest and dryest botanic description of all the
different palms that are known to us, that mere dry catalogue would fill
a book as big as this one!

How many species do you think there are? Up to this time you have
thought, perhaps, there was only one, and that was the _palm-tree
itself_. Maybe you had heard of more, such as the sago-palm, the
cocoa-nut palm, the date-palm, or the cabbage-palm; and you fancied
there might be others--perhaps as many as a dozen! Now you will hardly
credit me when I tell you that we know of no less than _six hundred
species of palms_, all differing from each other! I may add, further,
that it is my belief that there exist on the earth as many more--that
is, the enormous number of twelve hundred. The reason why I entertain
this belief is, that in all cases where similar guesses have been
hazarded--whether with regard to plants, or birds, or _mammalia_--they
have eventually proved far below the mark; and as the palm countries are
the very regions of the earth least known and least explored by
botanists, it is but reasonable to conclude that great numbers of
species have never yet been described, nor even seen. Another fact
which strengthens this probability is, that peculiar species of palms
are sometimes found only in a limited district, and nowhere else in the
same country. A small river even sometimes forms the boundary-line of a
species; and although whole groves may be seen on the one side, not a
tree of the same sort grows on the other. Some botanists even
prognosticate that more than two thousand species of palms will yet
become known. Of the six hundred species known, about half belong to
the Old World, and half to America. In America they are chiefly found
growing on the Continent--although several species are natives of the
West India Islands--while on the Eastern hemisp