137. PALMACEM. [6. Corypha. 



Sub-gregarious in the mud of the Mahanadi delta. Balasore ! Cuttack ' Very 

 common and often forming thickets. Fl. March-April, (i^ It was in young' 'fruit in 

 May.) 



5. P. rupicola, T. And. is a handsome small palm with dark green leaves up to 

 10 fD. long with a marked spiral twist and curved rhachis and the leaflets about 

 18 m a more or less vertical plane. Fruit shining yellow. It grows on rocks 

 near the rivers of the Sikkim and Bhotan Hills and Duars and is sometimes 

 cultivated for ornament. 



5. NIPA, Wurmb. 

 A gregarious palm with branched rootstock but no aerial stem. 

 Leaves pinnatisect with lanceolate plicate leaflets. Spathes many. 

 Spadix terminal, branched erect in flower, drooping in fruit. Fls. 

 monoecious, males in catkin-like lateral branches of the spadix, 

 female in a globose terminal head, perianth glumaceous. M. fl. 

 minute mixed with setaceous bracteoles ; sepals linear, with broad 

 truncate inflexed tips, imbricate. Stamens 3, filaments cuneate, 

 anthers linear basifixed. Fem. fl. larger with 6 rudimentary displaced 

 sepals, staminodes 0. Carpels 3, tips free each Avith an oblique stig- 

 matic line. Ovules 3, erect. Fruits forming a large globose syncarp 

 of many obovoid angular 1 -celled, 1 -seeded carpels with pyi-amidal 

 tips and sometimes infra-apical stigmas, pericarp fleshy and fibrous, 

 endocarp spongy and floury. Seed erect, grooved on one side, testa 

 coriaceous viscid within and adherent to the endocarp, albumen 

 equable. Embryo basilar, obconic. 



1. N. fruticans, Wurmb. 



Stem underground sometimes thick. Crown of leaves dense. 

 Leaves 12-18 ft. long, evenly pinnatisect, leaflets hnear or linear- 

 lanceolate wdth very characteristic bifurcate soft spines or scales 

 scattered along the midrib beneath with their common base adnate 

 to it and each fork subulate -2—3" or more long. Fruits roughly, 

 often unequally, 3-4 -sided and compressed and with a variable 

 number of subsidiary flutings and rounded ridges, 3-4" lon^ by 

 2 -5-3 -5" wide. " "^ 



This common Sunderbans palm has not been reported from our area, but I 

 mention it here as I have picked up its fruits on the Oris.sa coast and it may 

 possibly occur in the Mahanadi delta. 



6. CORYPHA, L. 



Tall stout monocarpic palms with very large flabellately multifid 

 leaves vnth. spinous petiole and very large terminal paniculate spadix 

 with many tubular spathes. Flowers small, 2 -sexual. Calyx cupular 

 3-fid. Petals 3, connate below in a stipes, ovate, acute, imbricate 

 or subvalvate. Stamens 6, filaments subulate, anthers dorsifixed. 

 Ovary 3-lobed, 3-celled ; style short, subulate. Fruit of 1-3 globose 

 fleshy drupes with basilar styles. Seed erect, globose or oblong with 

 equable albumen. Embryo spiral. 



1. C. umbraculifera, L. Tab, Beng. The Tahpat palm. 



A magnificent palm attaining 80 ft. high and 2-5 ft. diam., the young trunk 

 covered with the large sheaths and petiole bases, subsequently annulate. L. 8-1(1 

 ft. diam. cleft nearly to the middle into linear segments and with a petiole 5-10 ft. 



57 883 



