CXXXIX. PAXDAXACE.^. 813 



Order CXXXIX. PANDANACE^. 



Dioecious trees or shrubs, sometimes scanclent with aerial roots, the 

 stem often forked and supported, as if standing on stilts, by numerous 

 adventitious roots. Leaves coriaceous, narrow, acuminate, sessile, with 

 a sheathing base, in tristichous spirals, the edges and midrib usually 

 spinous, the spines on the margins erect, those on the midrib usually 

 retrorse ; transverse nerves prominent. Spadix axillary or terminal, 

 simple or branched, clothed with leafly spathes ; flowers small, crowded 

 or catkin-like ; perianth ; bracts and bracteoles 0. Male elowebs : 

 Stamens numerous ; filaments free or connate ; anthei's erect, basifixed. 

 PistiUode small or obsolete. Female eloweks : Staminodes small or 0. 

 Ovary 1-celled, free or connate with those of contiguous flowers in 

 phalanges of 2 or more ; ovules solitary and suberect, or many and 

 parietal ; stigmas subsessile, papillose. Fruit a syncarpium, consisting 

 of numerous more or less obconic drupes, the apex of each drupe or 

 carpel distinct, pyramidal, conical or convex, crowned by the hardened 

 style or stigma. Seeds minute ; testa striate ; albumen abundant, hard 

 and oily; embryo minute. — Dstrib. Tropical Asia, Africa, Australia, 

 Polynesia, Malay Peninsula and Archipelago, New Zealand ; genera 2 ; 

 species about 200. 



1. PANDANUS, Linn. f. 



Palm-like small trees or shrubs ; stems sometimes very short, erect, or 

 procumbent and rooting. Leaves long, spirally arranged at the ends of 

 the branches, sheathing at the base. Flowers dioecious. Male flowers : 

 Spadix compound, with numerous yellow or white keeled spathes. 

 Stamens numerous, single or united into bundles on the spadix ; 

 filaments short or long ; anthers sessile, elongate, 2-celled. Female 

 FLOWERS : Spadix simple, protected by leafly spathes, Staminodes 0. 

 Ovary of 1 or several 1-eelled carpels, free or connate ; ovule solitary in 

 each cell, ascending from the base of a parietal placenta. Fruit an 

 oblong syncarpium, usually solitary, of woody or fleshy thick-walled 

 drupes, which are deciduous singly or in masses from a fleshy receptacle, 

 the upper half of each carpel hollow or filled with a spongy pith-like 

 tissue. Seeds large, strophiolate ; albumen fleshy ; embryo small ; 

 radicle inferior. — Distrib, Asia, Tropical Africa, Australia, and 

 Polynesia ; species about 150. 



Carpels distinct; spathes of males not scented, yellow; style 



forked 1. P.furcatus. 



Carpels connate ; spathes of males strongly scented, white ; 



style not forked 2. P. fectoriut-. 



1. Pandanus furcatus, Roxh. Hort. Beng. (1814) p. 71. A small 

 gregarious tree with trunk 10-30 ft. high, by 6 in. in diam, (in the 

 Bombay Presidency only a spreading bush), branched, with aerial roots 

 from the lower part of the trunk. Leaves dark green, 8-15 ft. long by 

 3-6 in. wide, with short stout sharp spines on the margins and midrib. 

 Male flowers in compound cylindric spikes 4-6 in. long by |-1^ in. 

 broad, densely floriferous. Spathes golden yellow, inodorous, the lowest 



