COOK RELATIONSHIPS OF THE IVORY PALMS. 141 



Male flowers crowded on the spadix; perianth simple, saucer- 

 shaped, irregularly toothed; stamens very numerous, the slender 

 basally attached filaments twice as long as the anthers; pistillodes 

 wanting. 



Female flowers with 3 large, narrowly imbricate sepals; petals 5 

 to 10, longer and narrower than the sepals, and also imbricate; 

 staminodes numerous, with anthers as long as the filaments; carpels 

 several (4 to 9), the stigmas narrowly linear, united for about half 

 their length into a slender style. 



Fruits when young with apical stigma scars, with maturity becom- 

 ing variously lobed and irregular; outer skin thick and corky, soon 

 broken into numerous conical or wart-like frustules. 



Seeds several, large; albumen very hard and solid. Embryo basal, 

 covered by a specialized operculum. 



Germination similar to that of the genus Attalea of the family 

 Cocaceae, by means of a long cotyledon, carrying the plumule into the 

 ground. Cotyledon followed by two or three bladeless sheaths. 

 First true leaf composed of many separate pinnae. 



o 



