about a foot in diameter, with scarcely any difference in 
size to the very top, where it is crowned with a tuft of 
from twelve to twenty leaves ; these are very large ; the 
youngest rising from the centre, at first folded close, like a 
shut fan, and then clothed with a downy substance ; at 
length they expand into a broadly-ovate form, having a 
central rib, and beautiful regular plice or folds diverging 
from it; the margins more or less deeply cut, especially at 
the extremity. Some of these leaves have been measured, 
and found to be twenty feet long and ten or twelve feet 
wide, supported upon a petiole as long as the leaf itself: 
their more common size, however, is from eight to ten 
feet long, and five or six wide, which is about the dimension 
of the foliage produced by the oldest trees. The colour is 
a bright yellow green; the texture thin and dry, and when 
viewed under the microscope, is seen to be composed of 
a beautiful tissue of fine network, having quadrangular 
areole or meshes. The old leaves, when withered, hang 
down upon the stem, previously to falling off. | 
The male and female flowers are produced upon different 
trees (t. 2734.) ; each constituting a Spadix, which has 
sinall sheathing Spathas at the base. 
Spadix of the Male Plant from the axils of the leaves, amen- 
taceous (not unaptly compared to the closely imbricated 
Catkin of a willow), from two to four feet long (t. 2735), 
and from three to four inches in diameter in the thickest part, 
cylindrical, tapering however towards the extremity, closely 
covered on all sides with densely imbricated, semicircular, 
slightly convex scales, which so completely form a continua- 
tion of the substance of the spadix, as not to be separated 
but by force. When looking externally at these scales, a 
small aperture will be perceived, from which the stamens 
issue ; and this aperture, though near the base, is not in the 
centre of each scale, but constantly on one and the same 
side ; and as the scale laps over with that side the one next 
above it, so the aperture and the stamens will be found to 
pass through both (t. 2735. f. 2.). The origin of the sta- _ 
mens, indeed, is not, as in our amentaceous plants, imme- 
diately beneath the scales. We must make a transverse 
section through the whole (between fleshy and fibrous) 
substance of the spadix, and we shall find it to be every 
where filled with elliptical cavities, radiating from near 
the centre to the circumference, and on the circumference 
terminating at the apertures above mentioned. (See t 
