BECCARI. MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS CALAMUS. 61 
CALAMUS ty, 
Linn. Gen. Plant. edit. 1764, 173, No. 436; Mart. Hist. Nat. Palm. 
ii, 207 (2nd edit); Miq. Fl. Ind. Bat. in, 1093; Hook. f. & Bece. in Hook. 
f. Fl Brit. India, vi, 499. 
Usually slender climbing, more or less spinose or aculeate  polycarpic 
palms, never totally unarmed, rarely tufted or with an erect stem, never 
bearing terminal inflorescences. Leaves alternate pari- or imparipinnate or 
produced into a rudimentary or more often elongate and armed cirrus, 
very exceptionally flabellato-furcate or subradiately digitate. Leaflets commonly 
narrow, more rarely ovate or rhomboid, never sigmoid or decurrent along the 
rachis, inserted with a narrow and often plicate base, with 1-5 or rarely more 
coste or ribs, these subparallel and converging to an acuminate point, very seldom 
praemorse or truncate at the apex or with the nerves divergent and partly 
evanescent at different levels near the margin and not reaching the apex. 
Stem with long internodes, covered at first with sheaths forming the basal portion 
of the leaves.  Leaf-sheaths usually complete and cylindric, rarely open on the 
ventral side, usually provided at the. mouth with a more or less developed 
persistent or deciduous ocrea, coriaceous, elongated, generally spinous, with or 
without a lateral elongate clawed filiform flagellum.  Spadices dioecious, usually 
laterally attached at the summit of the sheaths, almost similar in both sexes, 
often elongate and slender, frequently produced into a long thorny flagellum 
or at least into a more or less elongate tail-like appendix, more rarely broadly 
paniculate, much branched and diffuse. Spathes of the main axis (primary 
spathes) long, tubular, sheathing, rarely split longitudinally and expanded or 
laminar, very exceptionally cymbiform or auriculiform; secondary spathes (spathes 
of the branches or branchlets) smaller, but similar to the primary ones; 
lowest primary spathe always persistent, tubular and flattened, at least at its base, 
Partial inflorescences or branches of the male spadix usually panicled, or branched 
two or three times, the ultimate divisions being formed by more or less 
elongate. usually complanate or more rarely subscorpioid spikelets. Spikelets with 
a vermicular or slender axis, which is sheathed with shortly tubular or infun- 
dibuliform appendicular organs or spathels, Mele spadix usually ultradecompound, 
rarely simply decompound. Male flowers solitary or very rarely glomerulate or 
subspicate at the mouth of every spathel, furnished with a cupuliform involucre 
sometimes replaced by two bracteoles. Calpe more or less tubular, 3-toothed or — 
3-lobate. Corolla coriaceous, always considerably longer than the calyx, divided almost 
to the base into 8 segments. Stamens 6, with subulate filaments which are shortly 
connate at the base; anthers dorsifixed. Female spadix more or less similar to the — 
male but usually less branched, or simply decompound and with more or less 
