cook: a new genus of palms 117 



readily separable from the seed. The raphe, instead of being 

 broad and adherent, is a narrow, superficial strand of fibers, 

 only slightly attached to the seed-coat. 



The characters assigned by Drude to Archontophoenix — the 

 short pistillode, the thin adherent endocarp, and the broad, 

 adnate raphe — are in fact possessed by the palm grown in Cali- 

 fornia, and are among the features which interfere with its 

 assignment to Archontophoenix. Although Archontophoenix, 

 as originally described in 1875 by Wendland and Drude,- was 

 based upon Mueller's Ptychosperma alexandrae, Drude's later 

 diagnosis seems to have been drawn for a different palm, perhaps 

 the very species grown in California. The features of special 

 interest in this comparison are summarized in the following 

 key and diagnoses. 



Archontophoenix Wendl. & Drude. Flowers white or greenish; 

 stamens 9-12, the anthers about twice as long as the filaments; pis- 

 tillode with long slender style exceeding the stamens. Pistillate 

 flowers with petals equal to the sepals and of the same form; sta- 

 minodes wantmg. Fruit elliptical, with a thin fleshy pericarp con- 

 taining rather narrow needle-like, simple or forked, longitudinal fibers, 

 adherent to the outer surface of a thin endocarp of bony palisade 

 tissue, distinct and readily separable from fhe seed-coats. Seed erect, 

 oval or elliptic, with pattern of the rumination apparent on the sur- 

 face of the seed-coats. Raphe represented by a narrow, vertical, 

 superficial strand of fibers, only slightly adherent to the seed-coats. 



Loroma Cook, gen. nov. 



Flowers purple or lilac, the staminate with strongly carinate sepals 

 and valvate petals; stamens 12-16, with anthers about half as long 

 as the filaments; pistillode conic-pyramidal, deeply trifid at apex, 

 much exceeded by the stamens. Pistillate flowers with sepals broadly 

 rounded, ecarinate; petals exceeding the sepals, very broadly imbri- 

 cate, unequal, with a broad angular emargination on each side of a 

 broadly triangular apex; staminodes present, represented by a circle 

 of six minute rudimentary filaments. Fruit subglobose, the pericarp 

 supported by a layer of broad, flat, strap-Hke, slightly anastomosing 

 fibers and an underlying layer of coarse-celled tissue closely adherent 

 to the surface of the seed except at the base and apex, with no indication 

 of a bony endocarp or shell of palisade tissue. Seed somewhat ob- 

 liquely depressed at apex, the raphe represented by a broad vertical 

 band of strongly adherent fibers, partially embedded in the seed- 

 coats. Albumen rather deeply and coarsely ruminate; embryo erect, 

 basal. 



2 Linnaea 39 : 214. 



