Oncocalamus. | CXLVII. PALME (WRIGHT). nee | 
Climbing palms with long slender stems. Leaves pinnate or bifurcate ; 
rhachis produced into a cirrhus armed with weak spines. 
Species 2, endemic. 
Leaves pinnate ; leaflets about 16 on each side . - 1. O. Mannis. 
Leaves bifurcate, or pinnate in the upper part only . 2. O. acanthocnemis. 
1. O. Mannii, Wendl. in Kerchove, Palm. 252. Stems about 60 ft. 
long, 6-12 lin. thick, Leaves remote, 5-6 ft. long, dark green, copper- 
coloured when young; sheaths 1-14 ft. long, cylindrical, clothed (as well 
as the rhachis) with dark brown caducous or deliquescent scales ; stipules 
sheathing, 6-9 lin. long, obliquely truncate; rhachis sparingly and 
minutely spiny at the margins, produced at the apex into a cirrhus 3 ft. 
long armed with weak deflexed spines 6 lin. long and 14-2 in. apart, 
alternate below, opposite above; upper leaflets about 16 on each side, 
alternate or sub-opposite, long lanceolate, acute, slightly falcate, shining, 
9-10 in. long, 12-15 lin. wide, midrib distinct, secondary nerves 6-7 on 
each side, obscure, margins with minute distant spines; lower leaflets 
smaller and nearer together. Spadices 4—5 ft. long, dark brown, pen- 
dulous, distichously branched, unarmed, naked at the base, clothed above 
with tubular adpressed sheaths 2 in. long, truncate and irregularly 
splitting at the mouth; branches 10 in. long, pendulous, alternately 
distichous, naked and adpressed to the spadix below, clothed above with 
infundibuliform imbricate bracteoles splitting down one side. Flowers 
fascicled, in the lower part of the branch in groups of 11, at the apex of 
3, the central one female and ebracteolate, the lateral male, in equal 
numbers on each side of the female, bracteolate-—Calamus (Oncocala- 
ong Mannii, Wendl. in Trans. Linn. Soc. xxiv. 436, t. 41, fig. E, t. 43, 
g. E. 
Upper Guinea. Lagos: Ebuti Metta, Millen, 18! Lagos Island, Barter, 
20220! 
Lower Guinea. Gaboon: Gaboon River, Mann, 1044! and on the Sierra del 
Crystal, 1500 ft., ex Mann. 
2. O. acanthocnemis, Drude in Engl. Jahrb. xxi. 111,133. Stem 
slender, reed-like, 3 lin. thick; sheaths long, cylindrical, sparsely 
covered all over with blackish reflexed spines. Leaves very shortly 
petioled, simply bifurcate or irregularly pinnately divided between the 
upper nerves; lobes broadly lanceolate and acute when the leaf is 
simply bifureate, or when more divided the upper lobes narrowly 
linear-lanceolate and 9-14 lin. apart, bearing marginal spines 4 lin. 
long; primary nerves about 8 on each side, prominent on the upper 
surface, scarcely raised on the lower; cirrhus many times longer than 
the very short midrib, armed with slender spines, destitute of larger 
prickles. Inflorescence and fruit unknown. 
Lower Guinea. Gaboon : in intertwining masses (bushropes) in the woods, 
Biittner, 527, 529 ; Gaboon River, Mann, 10444! Congo: Bolobo, Hens, C, 170! 
8. EREMOSPATHA, Mann et Wendl. ; Benth. et Hook. f. 
Gen. PI. iii. 936. 
Flowers hermaphrodite. Calyx campanulate, 3-toothed. Corolla 
