PALM^ 111 



thatch of dead pendant leaves descending in a regular cone from the broad crown of 

 living leaves sometimes nearly to the ground. "Wood light and soft, with numerous 

 conspicuous dark orange-colored fibro-vascular bundles. The fruit is gathered and 

 used as food by the Indians. 



Distribution. Often forming extensive groves or small isolated clumps in wet 

 usually alkali soil in depressions of the Colorado Desert in southern California, 

 sometimes extending for several miles up the caiions of the San Bernardino and San 

 Jacinto mountains, and in Lower California. 



Now largely cultivated in southern California, southern Europe, and other tem- 

 perate regions. 



5. SERENOA, Hook. f. 



Unarmed trees and shrubs, with tall often clustered stems, or on one species 

 with subterranean stems. Leaves semiorbicular, truncate at the base, coriaceous, 

 divided from the apex to below the middle into numerous parted segments ob- 

 liquely folded at the base; rachises short, acute; ligules thin, concave, abruptly 

 short-pointed, with a broad thin dark red deciduous border; petioles slender, flat on 

 the upper, rounded and ribbed on the lower surface, denticulate on the margins, 

 with thin light mahogany-red sheaths of slender fibres. Spadix interfoliar, pani- 

 culate, elongated, with a slender compressed stem and numerous slender elongated 

 gracefully drooping flat branches coated with hoary tomentum, slender terete flower- 

 bearing secondary branches, and flattened clavate spathes furnished at the apex 

 with a thin red-brown border. Flowers perfect, sessile, solitary, or in 2 or 3-flow- 

 ered clusters; calyx unequally lobed, the lobes valvate in the bud; corolla parted 

 nearly to the base, its divisions valvate in the bud, oblong, thick, concave, acute, 

 grooved on the inner surface with 2 or 3 deep depressions; stamens with nearly 

 triangular filaments united below into a cup adnate to the tube of the corolla, and 

 short-oblong anthers ; ovary of 3 carpels, free below, united above into a long slen- 

 der style tipped with a minute stigma; ovule erect from the bottom of the cell. 

 Fruit a 1-seeded black drupe, the outer coat thin and fleshy, the inner orange- 

 brown, resinous, fibrous, and strong-smelling, closely investing the pale brown thin- 

 shelled nut. Seed erect, with a hard chestnut-brown coat, lighter-colored with a 

 conspicuous mark on the ventral side, a small subbasilar hilum, and an elongated 

 ventral raphe; embryo lateral in homogeneous albumen. 



Serenoa, with two species, is confined to the south Atlantic and Gulf region of North 

 America. One species is arborescent, the other is a low shrub often occupying wide 

 areas of sandy barren soil from South Carolina to Louisiana. 



Serenoa commemorates the botanical labors of Sereno Watson. 



1. Serenoa arborescens, Sarg. 



Leaves about 2 in diameter, light yellow-green on the upper surface, blue-green 

 on the lower surface, divided nearly to the base into numerous lobes, slightly thick- 

 ened at the pale yellow midribs and margins, their petioles 18'-24' long, armed 

 with stout flattened curved orange-colored teeth. Flowers: spadix 3-4 long, 

 with a slender much-flattened stalk, panicled lower branches 18'-20' in length, and 

 6-8 thick firm pale green conspicuously ribbed spathes deeply divided and dilated 

 at the apex into a narrow membranaceous border. Flowers solitary toward the 

 ends of the branches and in 2 or 3-flowered clusters at their base, with a light chest- 

 nut-brown calyx and a pale yellow-green corolla. Fruit globose, |' in diameter; 



