Manicaria
(from manica, a glove; referring to the spathe which surrounds the flower stem). SYN. Pilophora. ORD. Palmae. This genus comprises two or three species of robust, unarmed, stove Palms, natives of tropical America, from Northern Brazil to New Grenada. Flowers yellowish-pink, rather large, sweetly scented; spadix interfoliaceous. Leaves terminal, large, rigid, sub-erect, lanceolate, acute, plicate-nerved, serrate, at length pinnatisect. M. saccifera, probably the only species yet introduced, inhabits the tidal swamps of the Lower Amazon River, and is distinguished from nearly all other Palms in the leaves being entire, or occasionally irregularly split when old. A rich sandy loam is necessary for its culture. Propagated by seeds, which should be sown in a strong, moist heat.
M. saccifera (bag-bearing). fl. of separate sexes borne upon the same spike; spikes simply branched, from 3ft. to 4ft. long, hanging down among the leaves, and inclosed in an entire brown spathe of a tough fibrous texture, which is at length split open. fr. three-lobed, covered with blunt angular tubercles of a dry, corky nature. l. simple, sometimes 30ft. long, and 4ft. to 5ft. wide, with coarsely serrated edges, and transverse furrows, stiff, erect upon the summit of the stem. Trunk erect, deeply ringed, from 15ft. to 20ft. in height. South America, 1823.