244 ANNALS | OF THE .ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. (C. luridus. , 
hairy-penicillate «at its spex; male and female. spikelets. the same, attached just at 
the mouth of their own spathe, «slightly callous. at. the axilla, spreading, arched 
rather slender; the largest simple spikelets, the lowest, 5-7 cm. long with 12-15. 
flowers on each side, the upper ones shorter; the branchlets 8—10 cm. long with 
2—4 spikelets on each side and a larger terminal one; spathels short, very broadly 
infundibuliform, much narrowed to the base, strongly striately veined, sprinkled with 
very small deciduous silvery scales, sometimes subscabrid, trancate and entire at the 
mouth, prolonged at one side into a.triangular, acute, patent or deflexed point; involu- 
crophorum propped by its own spathel and attached at the base of that above its 
own, slightly concave, irregular, scale-like, lobate;-involucre also slightly concave, 
irregular and more or less lobate, strongly veined areola of the neuter flower 
rather large, spongy, callous in the centre with acute and irregular borders. Male 
. flowers oblong, obtuse, 4°5 mm. long; the calyx with a short and broad tube, 
callous at the base, very strongly striataly veined; its teeth acute, short and 
broad; corolla twice as long as the calyx. Female: flowers broadly ovoid, with an 
almost flat and callous base and a conic point; the calyx as in the male flowers; 
the corolla slightly longer than the calyx. Fruiting perianth shortly pedicelliform. 
Fruit broadly obovoid, very suddenly and distinctly beaked, 11 mm, long, 8 mm, 
broad when not quite mature; -scales in 15—16 series, light greenish brown, 
faintly channelled along the middle, with pale scarious erosely toothed margin. 
Seed with equable albumen. 
. Hasrrar.— The Malayan Peninsula, in the district of Perak, Scortechini; at 
Larut, King’s collector, Nos, 2647, 6281, 6400; on the summit of Gunong Malakka, 
Herb. Cale, No. 7203. A very incomplete specimen collected by Ridley in the wild 
part of the Botanic Garden of Singapore apparently belongs to C. luridus. 
OssERvATIONS,— The flowering spadix which I have described is one of Scorte: 
chini’s from Perak, and this is more robust than those of other collectors; it is 
supradecompound and bears male flowers on the terminal spikelets and on some of 
those of the branchlets; otherwise, the greatest number of its flowers are female. 
Perhaps in more delicate speciniens the female spadix is not always supradecom- 
pound, but even in the partial inflorescence with fruit represented in our plate the 
lowest spikelets appear branched near their base. I have not seen -Spadices with 
male. flowers only. 
C. luridus seems allied to €, Reinwardtit from which it is distinguished by its 
not very numerous, rather remote, equidistant,  ensiform, distinctly and acutely 
tricostate leaflets, the costz being almost of the same strength, bristly-spinulous above 
and. smooth beneath. I am unable to establish if the supradecompound and 
monoecious spadices are a constant character of this species. 
PrarE 80.—Calamus luridus Becc. Summit of a leaf (upper surface) and leaf-sheath 
with the base of a spadix and of a leaf, from No. 2647 in Herb. Cale.; partial | 
inflorescence with almost ripe fruit, from No. 6284 in Herb. Cale.; portion of a 
monoecious spadix in flower and an intermediate portion of a leaf (lower surface), 
from Scortechini’s specimen in Herb. Becc, 
