NOTES ON PHILIPPINE PALMS, II. G13 



Stem -liort and thick, 2 m high at moat, and about 30 cm in diameter. 

 Leaves very largo, as much as 5 m in length, very similar to tho3e of .1. 

 Ambong; the leaflets are numerous, alternately suhequidistant, in the 

 intermediate portion of the rachis they are 5 to ; cm apart, and have a 



conspicuous axillary callus at their insertion ; they are firmly papyra- 

 ceous, green above, paler underneath and whitish, especially when young; 

 the mid-costa is inconspicuously dotted with very minute, orbicular, brown 

 scales: their general form is xwy irregularly elongate-lanceolate, but the 

 outline is more or less deeply broken by 4 to (> superimposed indentations 

 and their corresponding lobes, they are more or less cuneately narrowed 

 below to an acute base, which is often shortly auricled on the lower 

 margin: usually the leaflets are also somewhat narrowed above to an 

 obtuse or broadly rounded, or even bilobed apex; the margins of the 

 lobes are irregularly and sharply dentate-serrate: the terminal Leaflel is 

 cuneately flabellate and deeply bilobed. the others (in full grown plants) 

 are 55 to 70 em long, and -I to 7 cm wide in correspondence with the 

 indentations, and 7 to 12 cm in their broadest parts. Spadices with 

 several simple flowering branches, these at the time they are loaded with 

 fruits are Bubterete, 12 to II mm in diameter, glabrous and with a 

 polished surface in the spaces between the fruits. Male flowers in bud. 

 when full grown, are subclavale-oblong. 17 to IS mm long; the calyx 

 shnrtlv cupular, slightlv narrowed at the mouth: the sepals broader than 

 biarh and with a split-crenulate margin, more or less gibbous at the base; 

 petals oblong and boat-shaped, acute but not apiculale: stamens very 

 numerous ( 1 50 or more at times ) : anthers very narrow, Bubulate, aristate : 

 the seal's left by the fallen flowers bear the punctiform marks of .">() to 

 40 fibrO-vaSCUlar bundles. The two special bracts of each female flower, 

 after the fall of the fruit, are arched, crescent-shaped, entire and forming 

 a very shallow cup, but with their margins not or only slightly overlap- 

 ping each other. Fruiting perianth 27 mm broad; the sepals transversely 

 elongate-reniform, similar to the floral bracts. bu1 with split-crenulate 

 margins, 12 to K5 mm broad. 5 mm high; the petals coriaceous, concave, 

 deltoid, 15 mm long ami about as broad. Fruits- globose-oblong, equally 

 rounded at both ends, 3.5 cm long. .'! cm broad, not very distinctly 

 tricostulate on the top, and with a small trigonous cleft in the center of 

 this. Seeds elongate-elliptic, 25 to 26 mm long, 17 mm broad, sub- 

 trigonous, convex on the back, and with an obtuse salient angle on the 

 axial side, blunt at both ends. 



Apparently widely distributed in the Philippines. Lrzox, Province of Tayabas, 

 For. Bur. 10213, 102X0 Cumin, local name caong. Cebu, Bur. 8ei. 1731 McGregor. 

 Palawan, ridge slope 2 miles northwest of Irauan, altitude 200 m, For. Bur. 35-' t 2 

 Cumin. January. 1906; Mount Victoria, Bur. fife*. tSS Fowworthy, March, 1906, 

 altitude 250 m, local name I bud. BALABAC, Merrill 5372, October, 190G. A source 

 of sa^o, the buds also used for food (Curran). The wild people of Palawan, the 

 Tagbanuas, use the pith from the petioles for plugs on 1 he ends of their arrows, 

 to make them fit tightly into their blowguns (Merrill). 



