PALM. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 75 
SERENOA. 
Fiowers perfect; calyx cupular, unequally 3-lobed ; corolla 3-parted, the lobes 
valvate in wxstivation; stamens 6, their filaments triangular, joined at the base; car- 
pels 3, united above into an elongated style; ovule basilar, erect. Fruit drupaceous, 
l-seeded. Spadix interfoliar, elongated. Leaves alternate, orbicular or truncate, 
petiolate, their petioles dentate. 
Serenoa, Hooker f. Bentham & Hooker, Gen. iii. 926, 1228 (1883). — Drude, Engler & Prantl Pflanzenfam. ii. pt. iii. 
37. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. xiii. 314. 
Unarmed trees or shrubs, with tall arborescent and often clustered or short or elongated subter- 
ranean endogenous stems clothed above for many years with the sheathing bases of the petioles of the 
fallen leaves, and stout tough deep -descending roots. Leaves terminal, induplicate in vernation, 
semiorbicular, truncate at the base, coriaceous, green, or pale and glaucous on the lower surface, divided 
from the apex to below the middle into numerous two-parted segments plicately folded at the base ; 
rachis short, acute ; ligule thin, concave, obtusely short-pointed, furnished with a broad membranaceous 
dark red-brown deciduous border ; petioles slender, flat above, rounded and ribbed on the lower surface, 
dentate on the margins; vaginas thin and firm, bright mahogany red, lustrous, closely infolding the 
stem, their fibres thin and brittle. Spadix paniculate, interfoliar, elongated, its rachis slender, com- 
pressed ; branches numerous, slender, elongated, gracefully drooping, coated with hoary tomentum, the 
primary panicled at the base and simple toward the apex of the spadix, flattened, the secondary terete 
from the axils of ovate acute chestnut brown bracts; spathes flattened, thick and firm, deeply two-cleft 
and furnished at the apex with a broad or narrow red-brown membranaceous border, inclosing the 
rachis of the panicle, each primary branch with its spathe and the node of the rachis below it inclosed 
in a separate spathe, the whole surrounded by the larger spathe of the node next below. Flowers 
perfect, small or minute, sessile on the ultimate branches of the spadix in the axils of ovate acute 
chestnut-brown bracts, solitary toward the ends of the branchlets, and in two or three-flowered clusters 
toward their base, bibracteolate, the bractlets minute, caducous. Calyx truncate at the base, unequally 
three-lobed, the lobes valvate in estivation, thickened and persistent under the fruit. Corolla three- 
parted nearly to the base, its divisions valvate in sestivation, oblong-ovate, thick, concave, acute and 
thickened at the apex, grooved on the inner surface with two or three deep depressions, deciduous. 
Stamens six, included; filaments nearly triangular, united below into a cup adnate to the short tube of 
the corolla; anthers short-oblong, attached on the back below the middle, introrse, two-celled, the cells 
opening longitudinally ; ovary oblong-obovate, of three carpels free below, united above into a slender 
elongated style; stigma minute, terminal on the fruit; ovule solitary, erect from the bottom of the 
cell, anatropous. Fruit drupaceous, oblong-ovoid or globose, one-seeded, black, and lustrous, usually 
bearing at the base the two minute abortive carpels; exocarp thin and fleshy ; mesocarp thin and 
fibrous, orange-brown, resinous and strong - smelling, closely investing the pale brown crustaceous 
putamen. Seed erect, free, oblong, or subglobose ; testa hard, chestnut-brown, and Iustrous, lighter 
colored on the ventral side with a conspicuous oblong or circular mark; hilum small, subbasilar ; 
raphe ventral, elongated, undivided ; albumen homogeneous. Embryo lateral. 
Serenoa with two species is confined to the coast region of the south Atlantic and Gulf region of 
