Tab. 6347. 

 PANDANUS UNGUIFER. 



Native of Northern Bengal. 



Nat. Ord. Pandane.e. 

 Genus Pandanus, Linn. (EndUcher, Gen. Plant, p. 242). 



Pandanus unguifer ; humilis, caule gracili prostrato, foliis subdistichis 2-3 pedal- 

 ibus l£-2-poll. latis lineari-loratis junioribus abrupte senioribus sensim 

 caudato-acuminatis marginibus et costa subtus spinoso-dentatis, syncarpio 

 sessili suberecto ovoideo diametro pugilli, drupis obovoideo-cuneatis mono- 

 spermis lateribus angulatis vertice hemisplierico lsevissimo medio ungue parvo 

 duro nitidoacuto v. emarginato v. 2-dentato v. bicorni abrupte termiiiatis. 



I have failed to identify this dwarf Pandanus with any 

 described species, and yet it cannot be an uncommon Bengal 

 plant. It is not included in Kurz's Ke vision of the Indian Screw- 

 Pines in Seemann's Journal of Botany (v. 5, p. 93). The 

 obvious comparison was with Eoxburgh's P. fcetidus, which is 

 the common dwarf species of Bengal and Assam, and which 

 forms, like this, a bush on the ground in the forest, but that 

 plant has a drooping head with very different, longer, nar- 

 rower drupes, each with a hexagonal crown that ends in a 

 simple spine, sometimes nearly half an inch long ; the drupes 

 too, are far more numerous and smaller, I have gathered P. 

 fcetidus in Sikkim, Silhet, Cachar and Chittagong, and found 

 it very constant in its character, and totally different from P. 

 unguifer, whose fruit more resembles that of the arboreous 

 P.furcatus. Of this latter, indeed, I have thought that P. 

 unguifer might be either the young or a dwarf state ; but 

 Kurz describes the drupes of the Indian form of P. furcatus 

 as very concave at the top, and the typical state as flat or 

 convex at the top ; the very broad barren and more distant 

 spines on the margins and midrib of the leaves of P. unguifer 

 are also quite unlike those of P. furcatus. I regret not hav- 

 ing seen male flowers. 



Dr. Thomson and I found this species in Sikkim, from 



FEBRUARY 1ST, 1878. 



