Cljcas. DIOECIA MONANDRIA. 745 



This beautiful, small palm has of late years been introduc- 

 ed from Amboyna into the Company's Botanic garden, where 

 it thrives freely; blossoms in May, and ripens its seed in De- 

 cember and January. 



The trnnk of our young' trees, now ten or twelve years in 

 this garden, and some years old when they arrived, is from 

 two to five feet high, and from eighteen to twenty-four inches 

 in circumference, very rough with the swelled scars of the 

 fallen leaves. Leaves spreading- round the crown of the 

 plant, numerous, viz. sixty or seventy, pinnate, of a smooth, 

 shining, deep green in every part, from three to six feet long. 

 Leaflets generally from fifty to sixty on each side, conse- 

 quently rather remote, in some parts opposite, in others alter- 

 nate, of a linear-lanceolate, sickle form, acute, almost flat, 

 very smooth and entire, from four to ten inches long, and 

 about half an inch broad. Petioles nearly round, smooth, from 

 twelve to twenty-four inches of the base destitute of leaflets, 

 and there generally armed with a row of short sharp spines 

 on each side. Stipules, so I call the numeroui*, pointed, vil- 

 lous, imbricated scales, which are mixed amongst the swell- 

 ed leaves of the petioles, and closely embrace the peduncle 

 of the strobile. Male strobile elevated on a short, thick, firm 

 peduncle, from the crown of the plant, ovate oblong, being at 

 first about nine or ten inches long, but lengthening to nearly 

 double that extent, and continuing throughout about five 

 inches in diameter, imbricated with numerous, divergino- 

 scales. After continuing in vigour for nearly two months, 

 its peduncle is forced to one side, to give room for the annu- 

 al tuft of foliage, which then begins to appear from the cen- 

 tre of the crown of the plant. Scales wedge-shaped, obli- 

 quely-truncated, and thereclothed with much fulvous down. 

 In two of the three male plants now in blossom, a large, erect, 

 subulate point rises from the exterior upper angle of each 

 of the scales; when the strobile first appears they are closely 

 pressed together like the germs in the pine-apple, but as it 

 lengthens by age they become detached from each other, and 



VOL. III. 4P 



