970 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. [C. Rotang. 
horizontal or slightly ascendent, scattered, solitary spines which have a light base (this. 
being tumescent above and hollowed beneath) and a blackish point; some of the 
spines are 10-15 mm. long, whereas others are very small and tuberculiform, sometimes 
a few near the mouth are erect and longer than the others. Leaj-sheath flagella 
very slender, with their iowest spathe flattened, acutely two-edged and usually 
smooth, irregularly clawed upwards. crea short, truncate, brown, exsuccous, brittle, 
glabrous, unarmed or spinulous. Leaves not cirriferous, 40-80 cm. long; petiole very 
short or almost obsolete; rachis glabrous even in young leaves, in its first 
portion flat and smooth above, and channelled at the sides, where are inserted the 
leaflets, trigonous upward where acutely bifaced and smooth above, armed beneath 
along the middle and occasionally also at the sides with rather approximate always 
solitary black-tipped claws; leaflets very numerous, equidistant, alternate or sub- 
opposite, but sometimes with vacant spaces which are slightly longer than usual, 
narrowly or sublinear-lanceolate, somewhat attenuate at the base, very gradually 
acuminate at the apex, green and shining above, paler beneath, papyraceous, uni- 
costate, but with many rather distinct secondary nerves; the costa usually but not 
always sprinkled above with a few rigid subspiny bristles of which in most cases 
1-2 (situated near the base) are changed into rather robust spinules; the side- 
nerves always smooth; beneath, the bristles are also confined to the mid-costa; trans- 
verse veinlets short and interrupted, fine and distinct on the upper surface to which 
they give a tessellate appearance; margins ciliate, sometimes conspicuously, with spread- 
ing spinules; the largest leaflets, tbose a little above the base, 15-30 cm. long 
and 12-20 mm. wide; the upper ones gradually shorter, the two of the terminal pair 
the smallest and quite free at the base. Male spadix 0 6-1 m, long, slender, flngelli- 
form, more or less ultradecompound or sometimes simply decompound, bearing up 
to the very summit rather many (even 7-8) partial inflorescences; these 10-20 
em. apart and gradually decreasing in size and number of spikelets from the base 
of the spadix upward; lowest primary spathe tubular, flattened, acutely two-edged, 
smooth or armed at the side with straight spines; the other primary spathes. 
cylindraceous, very slightly enlarged above, closely sheathing, truncate at the mouth, 
where extended at one side into a very sbort point, attenuate at the base, where 
flat on the inner side and armed on the back with claws which are Stronger than 
in the upper part; partial inflorescences loosely panicled-pyramidate, arising erect from 
inside their own spathe, then spreading and arched downwards; the largest, the 
lower ones, 15-17 cm. long, with 2-3 arched branchlets at the base and 5-6 
simple spikelets upwards on each side and terminating in a spikelet longer than 
the side ones and with the flowers more distant than in these; secondary spathes. 
very narrowly  tubular-infundibuliform, glabrous, very finely striately veined 
smooth or furnished with one or two straggling spinules, obliquely truncate at the 
mouth, apiculate at one side; spikelets inserted above the mouth of their own spathe 
with a distinct axillary callus, spreading or somewhat deflexed, arched or subscorpioid ; 
» 
the larger ones, the lowest, 12-25 mm. long, with 5-12 flowers on each side; the 
upper ones shorter and with fewer flowers; spathels with a very short narrow 
cylindraceous base and very suddenly expanded into a broadly infundibuliform striately 
veined truncate limb, this ciliolate at the margins, and shortly apiculate at one side: 
involuere cupular, not or slightly exceeding the spathel, truncate, entire, obsoletely 
trigonous or sub-three-toothed. Male flowers distichous, inserted at an angle of 45°, 
