of Kew produced a cluster of male strobili, which by their form ° 
and colour added greatly to the interest and beauty of the plant. 
It is the most distinct of all the species of Zamia known to us. 
Drsor. Caudex or trunk of our largest plant erect, eighteen 
inches high, six to eight in circumference, scarred transversely 
from the fallen fronds. Fronds*three to three and a half feet long, 
including the stipites, few (five to six), erect, patent, pinnated. 
Stipites long, two to three feet, aculeate (as is the rachis), sub- 
terete, grooved in front, singularly incrassated at the base. Pinne 
few, seven to eleven, distant, opposite or alternate, nine to four- 
teen inches long, four inches broad, coriaceous, elliptical-obovate, 
suddenly acuminate, spinuloso-serrated towards the apex, atte- 
nuated, sessile, and subdecurrent at the base, the surface very 
glossy, closely striated with parallel veins. Male five to six 
inches long, an inch and upwards broad, pedunculate, rich tawny 
brown, downy, cylindrical, subacute, formed of copious sub- 
cuneate coriaceo-carnose scales, peltate and subhexagonal at the 
summit, bearing, in two depressions on the under side, the sub- 
globose two-lipped anthers. 
Fig. 1. Very much reduced male plant. 2. Cluster of male catkins, and 
3. Single leaf and portion of the rachis :—zat. size. 4, 5, and 6, different views 
of the anther-bearing scales,— magnified. 
