18 _ INTRODUCTORY ESSAY... 
Spadices of this kind are more or less armed with claws, have the branches on 
which the spikelets are borne remote from each other, and have the axial portion 
interposed between two such branches more or less armed with claws on the outer 
side. Spadices of this ‘class most usually occur in species that have non-cirriferous 
leaves and flagelliferous sheaths. 
The second kind of spadix is peculiar (to those species that have cirriferous 
leaves, but have leaf-sheaths which are not flagelliferous. In these species the 
spadices are comparatively short and broad, usually shorter than the leaves, panicled 
and often pyramidal with numerous approximated and gradually diminishing branches 
and with a rigid axis, non-flagelliferous at its apex. C. palustris and the other 
species of the group to which this belongs possess spadices of this character. : 
Only very few species have short and contracted spadices: C. Lobbianus, 
©. conirostris, ©. brachystachys are instances. (C. simpler alone has an undivided 
spadix with a simple spikelet at each primary spathe. 
It may be laid down as a general rule that when a Calamus has a long 
flagelliform spadix the leaves are not cirriferous, aud in this case if the leaf-sheaths 
do not bear spadices, these are replaced by long clawed flagella. On the other 
hand, when the leaves are cirriferous the leaf-sheaths are without flagella and the 
spadices are panicled ‘and comparatively short. 
In Calamus the spadices are always furnished with a variable number of eylin- 
dric or very rarely laminar spathes, to be explained presently at greater length; to 
each spathe there is a corresponding branch or “partial inflorescence.” | 
As a rule in the species where the spadices are flagelliform there is no very 
great dissimilarity between the male and the female spadix, though in almost every 
case the female is less branched than the male one, 
In the female spadix a simple branch-bearing spikelet springs from each spathe, 
and thus gives us a ‘simply branched” spadix; in the male spadix the 
primary branches are divided again and again, so that we have a ‘supra-decom- 
pound” spadix. 
In a few species the male spadices, like the female ones, are simply decom- 
pound, as in O. longisetus, O. leptospadiz, ete. Less often, the female spadix is also 
more or less partially ultra-decompound ; this I have observed in ‘the case of 
C. luridus and €. tonkinensis, where however only the basal portions of the lower 
partial inflorescences are branched again. Moreover, in €. luridus I have occasion- 
ally found sub-moneecious spadices in the form of inflorescences producing female 
spikelets in their lower parts and male ones at their apices. | 
.. A case of monecism is also afforded by €. rudentum, where occasionally in 
the female spadix near its aper a few spikelets may be composed solely of male 
flowers; these are apparently fertile, but are more slender than the flowers on 
exclusively male spadiees. I do not, however, know any truly monecious Calamus 
with female flowers normally accompanied by fertile male ones on the same spadix, 
or with distinct male and female spadices on the same plant, though Roxburgh 
employed the specific name menoicus for the Calamus already characterised by Linnaeus 
