Tab. 7018. 



HOWEA Belmoeeana. 



Native of Lord Howe's Island. 



Nat. Old. pALMEiE. — Tribe Abecej;. 

 Genus Howea, Beccari ; (Benth. et llook.f. Gen. PI. vol. iii. p. 904.) 



Howea Belmoreana; caudice elato, foliis 6-8-pedalibus, segmentis numem-is 

 inearibus acurainatis plicato-3-nerviis patenti-recurvis rjurginiboi raeliique 

 pentagono lanoginoau, spatlia lineari-elongata longe roufcrata labkpidota, 

 spadice simpliei crassa, floribus confertis basi torn* nobis inserta, masoallR 

 ovoideis, sepalis latis ciliolatis, petalis duplo longioribus ovatis acutis Isribas 

 glabris, staminibus perpluriunis stipite colunuuiri insertis, filamoutis hivvibus, 

 antheris lineari-oblongis, fructu otirttformi. 



H. Belmoreana, Beccari, Malesia, vol. i. p. 6G (Howeia). 



Kentia Belmoreana, Moore fy Muell. in F. Muell. Fragment, vol. vii. p. 99, cum 



lc. xylog., and vol. viii. p. 234; III. Sortie, t. 181; Benth. Ft, Austral. 



vol. vii. p. 187. 



Grisebachia Belmoreana, Wendl. Sf Brude in Linnosa, vol. xxxix. p. 202, t. iv. f. 1 ; 

 Brude Sf Wendl. in Naohricht. K. Geselsch. Wiss. Goett. 1875, p. 58; 

 Brude in Bot. Zeit. 1877, p. 636, t. 5, f. 14, 15. 



The little group of Islands called Lord Howe's, which 

 lies off the eastern coast of Australia in lat. 32° S., con- 

 tains three genera of Palms, of which two are peculiar 

 to the group. One of these, Iledyscepe Canterbury ana, 

 the Umbrella Palm of the colonist, is monotypic; the other, 

 Howea, contains probably two species, which, however, have 

 not as yet been satisfactorily diagnosed. These aie II. 

 Belmoreana and H. Forsteriana, of which Bentham in his 

 Flora of Australia (under Kentia Belmoreana, vol. vii. 

 p. 138) says that " the specimens, as far as they go, show 

 no difference that I can discover in the male flowers and 

 fruit, and the distinctness of the two, whether as varieties 

 or species, remains to be ascertained." Mueller, he says, 

 distinguishes two species, Belmoreana or " curly Palm," 

 with the leaves converging upwards, and Forsteriana, or 

 " thatch " or "flat-leaved Palm," with the segments hang- 

 ing. If these characters hold good, the subject of the 

 present plate would appear to be the Forsteriana, or thatch- 

 leaf Palm, and not the true Belmoreana ; but in the wood- 

 cut of the two species given by Mueller in his Fragmenta, 

 the differences between them are hardly perceptible, the 



octobeb 1st, 1888. 



