PALMAE 445 



"telescoped" rachis of the pinnate leaf. In advanced palmate genera, 

 the hastula, or so-called ligule, at the base of the blade, often showing a 

 "crumpling" of the fibrous strands of the rachis, represents the end 

 result of the telescoping (Fig. 148). 



Inflorescence 



The inflorescences, mostly large to huge, range from simple to com- 

 plex. (The inflorescence of the talipot palm, CorypJm umbraculifera, 

 is cone-shaped and may be 30 feet high and 50 feet in diameter at tlie 

 base. Inflorescences of Raphia may be 10 to 15 feet long.) The basic 

 form of the inflorescence seems to be a large, racemose panicle. This 

 panicle has been modified in many ways: by condensation and reduc- 

 tion; by fusion of branchlets, and by partial sinking of flowers or flower 

 clusters in thickened axes (Fig. 30). Simple spiral arrangement of 

 flowers is replaced in most genera by more complex spirals and by a 

 two-rowed or an irregular arrangement. Reduction of the complex 

 branch system has brought about extraordinary modifications. Branch- 

 lets have become connate laterally with the mother axis on which they 

 seem to be borne. Part of the story of condensation of the complex 

 panicle is the formation of small clusters of flowers — "sessile" or partly 

 sunken in the axis. These clusters consist of "triads" (Fig. 30D) — a 

 pistillate flower, with two staminate flowers, one above and one below 

 — or "diads," one pistillate and one staminate. It has been suggested 

 that these clusters indicate that the inflorescence is basically cymose, 

 but these "cymose" clusters seem to represent small, reduction groups. 

 The flower position is obscured. 



The inflorescences are borne in various ways: terminal on the trunk; 

 in the leaf axils, among or below the leaves; even on old trunks. Inter- 

 foliar is the more common type. In some monocarpic genera, where the 

 plant flowers once and then dies, they are terminal. In the fishtail 

 palms, the inflorescences mature in leaf-scar axils progressively down 

 the trunk — an example of centrifugal succession in development like 

 that in some androecia. 



Extreme condensation and connation in the inflorescence is seen in 

 the subfamily Lepidocaryoideae, in which the pistillate flowers are 

 enclosed in a lorica, or "armor," of scalelike structures (Fig. 34). (The 

 term lorica has also been applied to the individual members of this 

 sheath.) The morphological nature of the lorica has been uncertain; it 

 has been interpreted as a sheath of "excrescences" or of emergences of 

 tlie ovary wall, as an "axillary cup" with "secondary leaves," as the con- 

 nate bracts of suppressed inflorescence branchlets. The arrangement 

 and anatomy of the "scales," together with the structure of the "ovary" 

 as a whole, demonstrate that the lorica consists of leaflike organs, bracts 



