ON FORKED AND BRANCHED PALMS. 281 



On the Phenomena concerned in the Production of Forked and 

 Branched Palms. By Danieg Motftus, M.A., F.L.S., 

 Assistant Director, Royal Gardens, Kew. 



[Read 7th April, 1892.] 



In most palms there is a subeyliudrical stem surmounted by a 



mass of palmate, pinnate, or rarely pinnatisect leaves. The stem 



may vary from a slender reed to a huge column. As it is formed 



by the continuous development of a single monopodial bud, palms 

 have, normally, an unbranched caudex, either erect, scandeut, or 



sometimes prostrate. For the purpose of anatomical descrip- 

 tion, Mohl divided palm-stems into certain well-defiued classes. 

 These, with slight modifications rendered necessary in the treat- 

 ment of the present subject, are as follows : 



(a) Reed-like — slender, erect stems, as in Geonoma, Chamcedorea, 

 Bhapis. 



(b) Calamoid — long, slender, elastic stems, as in Calamus, 

 Plectocomia, Doemonorops. 



(c) Cylindrical — smooth, round, erect, somewhat slender stems, 

 as in Mauritia, (Enocarpus, Astrocaryum. 



(d) Cocos-like — thick, irregularly marked, sometimes shaggy, 

 tall stems, as in Borassus, Corypha, Blceis, Cocos. 



To these may be added the so-called stemless palms with short 

 tumid stems, as in Phoenix acaulis, Astrocaryum acaule, Sabal 

 Adansoni. 



In Serenoa serrulata and Nipa fruticans their horizontal 

 creeping stems are said to be slightly branched*. Besides 

 these, the only palms with erect stems that habitually branch are 

 one or two species of Hyphcene. The Doum palm, Hyphcene 

 thebaica, has several branches arranged dichotomously. H. Pe- 

 tersiana, represented in a photograph from Sir John Kirk in the 

 Kew Museum, has very numerous branches, probably 30 to 40 

 arising from a single stem. H. coriacea in the neighbourhood of the 

 mouth of the Zambesi, at least, is seldom more than once-divided ; 

 while in the East- African form of H. crinita the stem is cylindrical 

 and unbranched. H. ventricosa, as its name implies, has a stem 

 swollen in the middle and is also unbranched f. * The branching 



These, however, are analogous to the underground rhizomes of other 

 palms. 



t Kirk in Journ. Linn. Soc. ix. p. 234. 



LINN. JOURN. — BOTANY, VOL. XXIX. T 



