116 cook: a new genus of palms 



BOTANY. — A new genus of palms allied to Archonio'phoenix. 

 O. F. Cook, Bureau of Plant Industry. 



Apart from the several species of Phoenix and Cocos, only 

 one pinnate-leaved palm is commonly planted in the open 

 air in California. This is usually known as Seaforihia ele- 

 gans, but has also been called Ptychosperma elegans, Archonto- 

 phoenix alexandrae, and Archontophoenix cunninghamiana. As 

 these names belong to other species they should not be applied 

 to the palm grown in California. Reference of the plant in 

 question to Ptychosperma or Seaforthia is excluded because 

 the seeds are not sulcate. In this respect there is agreement 

 with Archontophoenix, but other characters are divergent. 



One cause of confusion is that characters given by Drude, 

 in Engler and Prantl's Natilrlichen Pflayizenfajnilien, as diag- 

 nostic of Archontophoenix are not found in the type of that 

 genus, A. alexandrae. These discrepancies relate to the form 

 of the pistillode and the structure of the fruit. Acquaintance 

 with the true Archontophoenix alexandrae was gained by the. 

 writer in 1905, at Cordoba, Mexico, fruit and seed of an in- 

 dividual there studied agreeing closely with Mueller's original 

 description and figures,^ but differing from those of the familiar 

 palm of California. For comparison with the genuine Seaforthia 

 elegans ample material was afforded by palms studied in 1914 

 at the Belize Botanical Station, British Honduras. The iden- 

 tification of the latter material led to a recognition of the fact 

 that ,the California palm was different from all of the species 

 to which it had been supposed to belong. 



Taking into account the original description of Archonto- 

 phoenix and the characters of the type species, the pistillode 

 should not be described as short and pyramidal in Archonto- 

 phoenix, but as having the same slender, elongate form as in 

 Ptychosperma and Seaforthia. Nor does the seed of the true 

 Archontophoenix alexandrae have an adherent endocarp, as stated 

 by Drude. The endocarp is represented in Archontophoenix 

 by a firm, bony shell, rather thin, but hard and brittle, and 



1 Fragm. Austr. 5: 47, pis. 43, U- 



