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Erythea (Fanciful name Erythea)

(a fanciful name: Erythea, in the mythology of the Greeks, was one of the Hesperides, daughters of Evening, or the West, "who dwelt on an island of the ocean, on the western edge of the world, and guarded a garden with golden apples"). ORD. Palmeae. A genus of two species of greenhouse palms, from Southern California. They are tall trees, with naked trunks, fan-shaped, plicate, filiferous leaves, and densely tomentose sheaths and inflorescence. Flowers solitary or in clusters, scattered along the numerous branches of the pendent panicle. The genus is very nearly allied to Livistona, of Australia and Eastern Asia, which differs in its distinct filaments, oblong fruit, with hard crustaceous pericarp, the leaf segments entire or nearly so, not filiferous on the margins. For culture, see Areca.

E. edulis (edible). A handsome species, with a slender trunk, 30ft. high, and 15in. or more in diameter. Each tree bears one to four panicles, blossoming late in March; the fruit clusters are said to weigh 401b. to 501b. Guadalupe Island. SYN. Brahea edulis.