MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 271 



VIII.— DOUM PALMS IN INDIA. 



(Head at the Meeting held on 1st July, 1891.) 



Among other objects of interest, which attracted my attention during my 

 visit to Baroda in October, a number of young palms planted in the public 

 Park gave rise to some enquiries and further investigations, the result of which 

 I now have the honour to lay before the Natural History Society, with the 

 object of soliciting further information regarding the Indian Doum-Palm. 



The palms referred to in the Baroda Park were in all respects very similar 

 to our common Palmyra-Palm (Borassus flabelliformis), the principal difference 

 being that the leaf-stalks were almost golden-yellow and armed with promin- 

 ent, hooked spines, in the place of the very close-set and minute teeth that 

 edge the leaf-stalk of the Palmyra- Palm, and that a few of the plants, being, 

 I presume, 5 — 6 years old, were commencing to bifurcate. The plants were all 

 seedlings from the Doum-Palm growing in a wild or at least naturalized state 

 at the Gaekwar's possessions near Oomrad in Surat. They, however, appeared 

 to me to widely differ from the well-known specimens of Doum-Palm 

 in the Sewree Cemetery, and still more from seedlings in the Victoria 

 Gardens raised from seeds obtained from Aden. Mr. Hardy, Assistant 

 Engineer in Bhavnagar, had informed me of the occurrence of branching 

 palms in Mahuva near the sea in the Bhavnagar State, and has kindly sent me 

 photographs of two of the largest specimens. He writes, " I think they are 

 wonderfully graceful. From one stem four main branches rise, each of which 

 again branches into two (and two only) even up to the tiny twigs, which are 

 not as thick as a finger. There are several about, and I am sending 

 the photos of the best specimens that I have seen. The villagers call them 

 1 Rawun Tadd,' Eawun being the name of one of their gods, who had a lot of 

 arms." At my request for further particulars and specimens of leaf, flower and 

 fruit, he kindly forwarded the specimens now laid on the table, and writes : — 

 " I am sending you the leaf, fruit, and flower of a male and female branching 

 palm. The height of the larger one, whose photograph I sent you, is 58 feet. 

 The main stem measures 19 feet round, and the circumference of the 4 

 trunks that branch from it are 5 feet 9 inches, 5 feet 9 inches, 5 feet, and 4 feet 

 9 inches. The other one is 50 feet in height, the main trunk 14 feet 10 inches 

 round, and its two stems 4 feet 2 inches and 5 feet 4 inches in circumference. 

 They are both according to the villagers about 180 years old. The female 

 palm is much the same to look at, and grows in a neighbouring field. Some 

 months ago, Mr. Henry, the Superintendent of Public Gardens, Baroda, kindly 

 sent me seeds of the palm in the Baroda territory, and from the appearance 

 of these, as from the similarity of the leaves sent, to those observed in Baroda, 

 I feel convinced that the palms in both localities belong to the same kind, and 

 are different from the tree at Sewree and the seedlings of seeds from Aden. 



The literature at my command is very limited regarding references to the 

 different species of this genus Hyphozna. Bentham and Hooker's Genera 



