seeds globose, erect, the hilum oblou.g, the testa very hard, the 
branches of the raphe closely reticulate and involving the seed, 
the endosperm corneous, uniform, the embryo basal. 
The genus has become known from Central America 
(Bailey 1943: 392-393; Standley and Steyermark 1958: 271— 
273), Trinidad (Bailey 1933: 409-413) and northern South 
America: from Colombia, the Orinoco Delta, the Guianas 
( Wessels Boer 1965a, b) to the mouth of the Amazon ( Burret 
1928: 389). It also occurs on the Rio Negro and the Upper 
Amazon ( Wallace 1853: 70). 
A very complete description of the species Manicaria 
saccifera was written by Wessels Boer (1965a: 21) PLATE 
LXIX: 
Trunk solitary, up to 6 m. tall, about 3 dm. in diameter, in the 
upper part covered with dead leaf-bases, at base with prominent 
leaf-scars. About 10 contemporaneous suberect leaves; dead 
leaves persistent for some time and hanging down on the trunk; 
sheath with fibrous ventral part enclosing young leaves about 7 
dm. long; petiole stout, about 12 dm. long and 8 cm. in diameter, 
grooved, leaf-blades very large, simple or irregularly pinnatisect 
through the action of the wind, also in leaves of juvenile plants, 
up to 72 m. long and 23 dm. wide, bifid at apex, margin serrate; 
about 120 primary veins, 3-4 cm. distant at the middle of the 
blade, secondary veins inconspicuous; petiole, costa, and the 
lower surface of the blade at first more or less brown-tomentose, 
soon glabrescent. 
Spadices almost erect, about 17 dm. long, with 2 spathes; outer 
spathe about 7 dm. long, flattened, invisible between leaf-sheaths, 
inner spathe about 11 dm. long, fusiform, mucronate, consisting 
of densely interwoven fibers without any suture, enclosing the in- 
florescence completely till long after anthesis; peduncle about 10 
dm. long, rachis about 6 dm. long with up to 45 simple rachillas 
or rarely a few rachillas bifurcate, several large bracts along the 
peduncle within the inner spathe, smaller bracts at the base of 
the rachillas. Male flowers densely crowded in the upper part of 
the rachillas (and 2 laterally adjacent to each female flower), 
sunken in small pits and subtended by bracts 7-12 mm. long; 
sepals ovate, imbricate, 3-4 mm. long, petals lanceolate, valvate, 
ligneous-incrassate, 6-7 mm. long; stamens many (20-34), 
densely congested, filaments about 1% mm. long, anthers 3 mm. 
long, the central ones usually misshapen. Female flowers few, 
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