imperfect male inflorescence has reached Kew, details of the spathe 



and bracts are wanting. As recorded in the Kew Bulletin (1898, 

 p. 100), the Rev. It. B. Coniins sent a short branch bearing a mature 

 female inflorescence (fruiting spadix), and a male inflorescence in a 

 very advanced stage and much damaged by insects. It was he also 

 who discovered that the leaves are quadrifariously arranged, not spir- 

 ally as in Pandanus, The following extracts are from his notes 

 accompanying the specimens : 'Having seen the plates and description 

 of Sararanga sinuosa ... I thought I recognised the same, or some- 

 thing very similar, growing freely on the edges of a swamp, near our 

 Mission Station of St. Luke's, Sicta. I was further interested in the 

 particulars of the same given by the officers of II. M.S. "Penguin" 

 (Kew Bulletin, 1895), with which in the main our specimens seem to 

 agree. It certainly seems to prefer damp situations, although we have 

 a few on the hill-side thirty or forty feet above the swamp. They 

 grow in clumps of three or four amongst other ordinary Pandanacese. 

 I however searched in vain for young seedlings. The leaves furnish 

 an extra strong fibre valued for tying the thatch and beams of houses. 

 It never has any adventitious roots, but a general thickening of the 

 stem at its base. It rises from twenty to thirty feet and then branches, 

 more regularly than most Pandanacea?, the branches running at an 



gle of 45° to 60° from the base line. . . . The description of the 

 female flowers and fruit agrees with what T found, but when we come 

 to leaves I have to point out what I imagine to be a very important 

 difference. I could detect no screwthread, such as one expects in a 

 Pandanus^ and the leaves run in fours [four lines] each one above its 

 fellow in a direct line. . . . Female flowers and fruits abounded, but 

 I was at a loss to find male blossoms in a proper state to forward to 

 Kew. I observed various trees with a terminal inflorescence on an 

 altogether smaller scale . . . having the typical -i leaved stem, and so 

 I hoped I had found what I was searching for ; but all were dried and 

 much injured by insects, so that I hesitated to gather them. I have 

 sent the best I could get, and will try for better specimens at another 

 time of year. I had no microscope or means of making a more exact 

 examination of the structure.' At first these specimens looked hope- 

 less, but after much washing we got rid of the dead insects and excreta 

 and found some perfect flowers. — \Y. Dotting II ems le v. 



Fig. l,a male flower; 2, a stamen ; 3, a pollen-grain. All enlarged; the pollen 

 x 10 >. 



