232 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
Spathes numerous, the outer short. 
Male flowers in pairs; sepals valvate, pistillodes small. 
Female flowers with separate sepals and petals; staminodes none ( Wend- 
land) ; present in the type species (Klotzsch) ; ovary trilocular. 
Fruits oblong-ovate; stigma scar close to the base; epicarp subrugose or 
puberulous; mesocarp grumous; endocarp membranous. 
Seeds oblong-ovate with immersed bundles rising from the base on the ventral 
side, running close together to the apex, then anastomosing and coming together 
again at the embryo; albumen ruminate (Wendland) or uniform (Klotzseh) ; 
embryo basal, erect. 
Type species, Catoblastus praemorsus. 
Catoblastus praemorsus ( Willd.) Wendl. Bonplandia 8: 104. 1860. PLATE 61. 
Oreodoxa praemorsa Willd. Mém. Acad. Sci. Berlin 1804: 26. 1809. 
Triartea praemorsa Klotzsch, Linnaea 20: 448, 1847. 
Trunks erect, cylindrical, very smooth, 12 to 15 meters high; stoloniferous. 
Leaves pinnate, very long, the pinnee broadly cuneiform, narrowed at base, 
unequally premorse-dentate at apex, alternate; color dark green. 
Fruit ashy gray, ovate; seed ovate, of the size of a pigeon’s egg; endosperm 
brown, marbled with numerous veins. 
Forests of the high mountain chain of Buenavista, Province of Caracas, 
Venezuela, growing with Orcodora acuminata, but much more rare. 
The natives call this palm “ pyra,” a name they apply to all the palms which 
have terminal buds that can be used for food. 
The above data are drawn from Willdenow’s original description. The species 
was described at greater length by Klotzsch, but it does not appear certain 
that he had the same palm; at least the particulars differ considerably, as may 
be judged from the following transcription of additional or divergent facts: 
Trunks about 15 from the same root, 30 to 50 ft. long, 38 inches thick, borne 
on a cluster of warty brown roots about as thick as the little finger. 
Leaves 3 to 4 feet long; rachis compressed, margined above, and with the 
margin pubescent; pinnie 5 to 24 pairs, 10 to 12 inches long, 14 to 24 inches 
broad, alternate, herbaceous, pale green, distant, nearly smooth, irregularly 
rhomboidal-cuneate, united at the base, repand-erose toward the apex, below 
with 6 to 8 parallel, prominent veins; terminal pinna flabelliform, at apex 
dentate-truncate, sometimes bifid, short-cuneate at base, 7 to 11 inches long, 
6 to 9 inches broad. 
Spadices numerous (10 to 20), cylindric-fusiform, 10 to 12 inches long, 24 
inches broad, thickened near the apex and obtusely pointed, narrowed toward 
the base. 
Spathes coriaceous, the interior ones complete, closed, at length opening on 
the ventral side, the exterior shorter, incomplete, imbricate, tubulous, open at apex. 
Flowers sessile, without bracts, yellowish, monmcious in separate, simply 
branched spathes; male flowers in pairs; calyx of three triangular, fleshy, 
minute sepals, valvate in the bud; petals three, acute-triangular, fleshy, 8 
times as long as the sepals; stamens 9 to 15, hypogynous, the filament free, 
filiform, the anthers linear, attached at the base, opening by two longitudinal 
slits; pollen grains round, echinate; pistillode very small; female flowers soli- 
tary, sepals and petals triangular, fleshy, the petals twice as long; staminodes 
few, rudimentary; ovary with 3 carpels, the ovules basal, solitary, rarely two, 
anatropous; stigmas three, sessile, beak-like, connivent. 
Fruit ovate, somewhat wrinkled, green, at length blackish, of the size of a 
pigeon’s egg, 1-celled and 1-seeded; albumen uniform, horny; embryo basal. 
