with leaves, that Bory pr Sr. Vincent informs us, they do 
not leave the smallest passage for the ne of the sun. 
Leaves four to six inches long, bursting from a pair of 
large, deciduous stipules, varying much in different parts of 
the plant: those of the fertile branchlets are such as are 
here represented, nearly obovate and entire: those from 
the higher branches are more obovate and oblong: whilst 
those produced by the young shoots from the root are often 
very narrow, or cut into two or three oblong lobes, making 
an approach, as Mr. Guitpine observes, to the leaves of 
Arrocarpus incisa. All of them are of a thickish, some- 
what coriaceous texture, smooth above, rough with minute 
hairs beneath, somewhat obtuse at the point, at the base 
attenuated into a short footstalk. 
The flowers, both male and female, are produced not 
only on the same plant, but, generally, on the same pecu- 
liar branchlet, springing from the trunk of the tree, or some 
of its main branches. The male mostly appear laterally, 
the female solitary and terminal. Sa 
ale Flowers exceedingly densely crowded on the out- 
side of a large, fleshy, peduncdiabed, central receptacle, so 
as to constitute an amentum, very minute ; consisting each 
of a single stamen, having a flattened, white filament, and a 
two-lobed, yellow anther, included within a two, more 
rarely a three-leaved, single perianth, of which the leaflets 
or scales are oblong-obtuse, downy at the top, about equal 
in length with the stamen. A transverse section shews 
these beautifully radiating from the circumference of the 
spongy centre. This amentum is at first covered (and 
frequently accompanied by a leaf) with the stipules, which 
thus seem to act the part of a spatha. | | 
Female flowers equally surrounding a large, fleshy recep- 
tacle, much crowded, so as to form an oblong, tuberculated 
mass of flowers ; each of which consists simply of an oblong, 
tubular perianth, green, contracted at the mouth, which 
surrounds the pistil in the same manner as the urceolate 
perianth of the Genus Carex: convex, and generally hex- 
angular at the top. Within is seen, at the base, the small 
ovate germen, bearing from its side the white style, whose 
simple, clavate, curved stigma passes through the aperture 
of € perianth. In advancing to maturity, this amentum, 
or spadix, as it might be called, swells in every direction, 
and es a muricate or papillose, compound, fleshy, 
oblong Jruit, of a yellowish colour, and of most enormous 
size, often exceeding seventy or eighty pounds in weight, 
and of a structure that deserves more particular consider- 
ation 
