68 PALM TREES 



Genus Manicaria, Gartner. 



Male and female flowers in the same spadix. Spathe 

 fusiform, fibrous, complete, breaking open irregularly. 

 Male flowers with twenty-four to thirty stamens. Fe- 

 male flowers (situated below the male) with three sessile 

 stigmas and twelve rudimentary stamens. 



Stem short, thick and irregularly ringed. Leaves 

 very large, entire and rigid, the sheathing bases per- 

 sistent. Spadices simply branched, growing from 

 among the leaves, nearly erect. Fruit large, hard, 

 somewhat triangular or three-lobed and three-seeded, 

 externally very rugose. 



Only one species of this genus is known, which in- 

 habits the Lower Amazon at the level of the sea. 



