164 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. (C. Schweinfurthii 
broad conic rather obtuse point, 16-18 mm, long, 11-12. mm. broad; scales in 15-18 
series, shining, deeply channelled’ along the middle, yellowish-brown with a darker, 
narrow, rusty-reddish, intramarginal line, the tip rather acute and, like the margins, 
erosely toothed. Seed ovoid or oblong, 10-12 mm. long, rounded to both ends or 
slightly apiculate, convex and obsoletely furrowed longitudinally on the back, 
slightly flattened, with an elliptic, not very deep central chalazal fovea on the raphal 
side; albumen bony, equable; embryo basal. 
Hasrrat,—Central Africa: discovered by Dr. Schweinfurth in the Niam-Niam 
country at Mansilli (No. 2860, 7th February 1870) and at Nabambisso, 6th May 
1870 (No. 3703); at Lado on the White Nile, collected in fruit by Dr. 
Emin Pasha, 1883 (Herb. Schweinfurth); Ussororo, collected by Dr. Stuhlmann (Emin 
Pasha. Exp., 1891, No. 2531 in Herb. Schweinfurth), 
OssrRVATIONS.—I have been able to write an almost complete description 
of this, Dr. Schweinfurth having most liberally placed in my hands all his 
specimens of Calamoid palms from Central Africa, which apparently belong to only 
one species (that described above) and to an Eremospatha, apparently new but allied 
to E, Hookerit (E. Schweinfurthii Becc.; 3 Schweinfurth No. 3675).  Schweinfurth's — 
specimens of C. Schweinfurthi are of a few entire leaves detached from full-grown 
plants and of the terminal portion of some young leafy shoots ; while those of 
Dr, Emin Pasha consist only of some partial inflorescences with ripe fruit without 
leaves. There is not therefore any absolute evidence that the leaves described by 
me and the fruit belong to the same species, still I have little or no doubt about 
it, as- both fruit and leaves are very similar to the corresponding parts of the 
other true African Calami and especially to OC. deerratus and C. Heudelotii. 
, €. Schweinfurthii differs from C, deerratus in its leaves having a very long petiole 
and in its fruit having larger not fimbriate scales; from C. Heudeltii in its larger 
and thicker spikelets with broadly infundibuliform spathels and in the different orna- 
mentation of the ocrea. The fruit and the seed in the three mentioned Species are 
very similar; certainly they are very nearly allied species. I first assigned the 
name of C. Schweinfurihi in 1892 to a specimen (Schweinf. No. 2860) which I had 
seen in the Herbarium at Kew. Now Prof. O. Drude in a paper on the Palms of 
Tropical Africa in  Engler's “ Botanische Jahrbücher xxi, 1896," mentions my C. 
Schweinfurthii and insists on referring it to  Ancistrophyllum secundiflorum, basing this 
opinion on the supposition that all non-cirriferous leaves in Calamus must belong to 
young plants, and adding that these leaves ought not to be collected and preserved 
in good collections ; but it is quite certain that entire sections of Calamus never have 
cirriferous leaves, and to this class belong all the African Calami known to me. 
Moreover, the leaflets of Ancistrophyllum are slightly sigmoid, while in @, 
Schweinfurthii, as in all true Calami (African or Asiatic), the leaflets are straight, 
The diagnostic characters of O. Schweinfurthii are the elongate leaves with the 
petiole very long, flat above and round beneath; the numerous inequidistant, not 
distinctly fascicled, narrowly ensiform leaflets: the ocrea prolonged externally and 
spinulous on the ventral face; the female spikelets thick, with broad infundibuliform 
