172 Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 



anthers oblong often sagittate at the base. Pistillode small. Female 

 flowers larger, similar with three large recurved stigmas. Ovary in- 

 completely three-celled clothed with scales. Fruit globose, oblong or 

 turbinate covered with imbricating scales, polished yellow brown or red- 

 resinous in one section. Seed globose, pitted, enclosed in a thin sweet 

 pulp. Species about 60. Distribution, India, Andamans, China, 

 Cochin-china, Malay Islands and Archipelago. 



The plants of this genus are usually shorter and stouter than the 

 Calami, and more densely armed, the leaves are always flagelliferous 

 on the climbing stems and there are never any inflorescence-flagella, 

 nor is the inflorescence ever armed with hooks, as in that genus, the 

 spathes are never tubular, but broad flat or boat-shaped deciduous limbs. 

 The flowers are more often pedicelled, and both sexes occur on the same 

 plant. Owing to the shortness and thickness of the stem, the rattans of 

 this genus are little valued by Malays, and are seldom collected. The 

 fruit is often eaten or rather sucked for the thin sweet pulp as it is in 

 the Calami. The species of the section Piptospathae rcsiniferae pro- 

 duce the red resin in the shells of the fruit known as Dragon's blood. 

 In this genus and the next Calamus there has been great difficulty 

 in identifying the plants with published descriptions. The species of 

 the Peninsula were first described by Griffith, " Palms of British In- 

 dia," all or nearly all very incompletely, so that it has been by no 

 means easy to identify his species. Hardly anything of his types 

 exist, and the native names which he gives, which might help, are 

 nearly all attributed to the wrong palms. Martins made matters little 

 better. Beccari in the Flora of British India described a number of 

 old species more fully than they had been previously done, but also 

 gave names to miserable and useless scraps of leaves or fruit from the 

 collections of Scortechini and others. The Calameae vary so much in 

 form and armature of leaf and stem according to age of the plant, and 

 in different parts of the plant, that leaf and stem fragments only are 

 almost valueless. Furtbermore the size of the spadices in Doemono- 

 rops especially, vary enormously according to the age of the stem. 

 The spadices of the lower part may be only a few inches long while 

 those of the upper part may be over a foot or eighteen inches. When 

 to this is added the fact that in Calamus and some other genera the 

 plants are unisexual and it is not only rare to get samples of both 

 sexes, but it is also in some cases extremely dilficult to correlate the 

 two sexes, the great difficulty of studying the genera and the great 

 liability to error will be understood. In collecting specimens the ordi- 

 nary collector is apt to take only scraps of the plant, as adequate speci- 

 mens are so bullky, that full specimens of say half a dozen species is a 

 good load for a carrier. 



§ 1. OYMBOSPATHAE, Bpadix unopened, 

 fusiform short, outer spatho boat-shaped spiny 

 beaked entirely enwrapping tho inner ones and 



