1010 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



an elevation 5,000 feet. OUgotoma saundersi lived for weeks in captivity 

 laying eggs freely. The eggs are oval, pearly- white, laid singly or a few 

 together on the tree or the bark under which they live, in or near the silvery 

 ramifying tubes prepared by the insects. The young are white and 

 become pink as they grow older. We found colonies of these insects in all 

 stages under the bark of a dead tree ; in captivity they lived quite well, 

 feeding apparently upon the bark ; there was no other food and the colony 

 throve and multiplied, laying eggs freely. 



In the plains the colony died, despite all precautions, probably from the 

 altered conditions of moisture. 



H. MAXWELL LEFROY 



Agricultural Research Institute. 

 PusA, Bengal, December. 1909. 



No. XXXII— SOME NOTES ON THE PALM OREODOXA REGIA. 



{With a Plate.) 



Oreodoxa regia, though a native of Cuba, is very commonly found cultivated 

 in Indian gardens. As might well be expected, it is treated of by many 

 botanists, but strange to say their descriptions sometimes widely differ from 

 one another, as will be seen from the following short account : — 



Bentham and Hookeri say that there are two complete spathes, the lower 

 one semi-cylindrical as long as the spadix, the upper one ensiform, split on 

 the ventral side. Kunth- mentions that there is only one spathe. Scheffer* 

 is also of the same opinion. In a specimen which I examined there are clearly 

 two spathes. The whole inflorescence, a compound spadix, is enclosed in a big 

 complete spathe measuring 3'-l" (fig.I-a). A second incomplete spathe entirely 

 surrounds the lower half of the complete spathe. The incomplete spathe is 

 l'-2" long on the ventral side and 9" on the dorsal (fig. I-fe). The outer one is 

 incomplete in a later stage, but may have been complete in the beginning and 

 due to the faster growth of the inner spathe, left incomplete. In the beginning 

 of January when I observed the spathes, the inner one was about 1' long and 

 the outer about 3". At the end of June they attained their full development. 

 The incomplete spathe detaches itself from the inflorescence, leaving a scar 

 (fig I.-c), sometime before the complete spathe opens. The complete spathe 

 opens ventrally by a slit (fig. I-d). 



Kunth says that the flower bearing branches of the spadix measure fi-om 

 3" to 4". In my specimen they were from 2" to 6" long. The girth of the 

 main peduncle is 6". The primary as well as the secondary peduncles are 

 scurvy. The length of the inflorescence is 2'-3". 



' Genera plantarum , Vol. III. p. 898-900. 



- Kunth in Humb. ot liompl. nova Gen. et. Spec. pi. Vol. I, p- 244. 



Scheffer in a manuscript note according to Beccari in ■' lUustrazione dialcune Palme 

 Viventi nel Giardino Botanicn di Baitenzorg in Annales du jardin Botaniqne de 

 Baitenzorsr, Vol. II, p, 148. " 



