320 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. (C. gracilis. 
above, almost flat, disciform, slightly projecting and apiculate on the side of the 
neuter flower; involucre orbicular, disciform-pateriform or almost explanate, the margin 
often unequal or undulate; areola of the neuter flower depressed, sublunate with a 
central callous scar and rather sharp borders, Female flowers distant, horizontally 
attached, 3°5 mm, long; the calyx shortly cylindraceous, thick and coriaceous, almost 
smooth or obsoletely veined, shortly 3-toothed; corolla deeply parted into three ovate- 
acute segments, slightly longer than the calyx; stamens with filaments highly connate 
at the base and broadly triangular in the free portion; anthers sagittate. Fruiting 
perianth distinctly pedicelliform with a flat base. Fruit broadly ovoid-elliptic, equally 
rounded at both ends, caudiculate at the base, very suddenly and shortly mucronate 
at the summit, 25-30 mm. long including the perianth and the beak, 14-17 mm. 
broad ; scales in 21 series, straw-yellowish, usually concolorous or with a very narrow 
brown border, shining, narrowly but rather deeply channelled along the middle 
throughout their total length, and giving the fruit the appearance of being 
longitudinally channelled with as many furrows as there are series of scales. Seed 
almost regularly ovoid, rounded at both ends, 16-18 mm. long, 12-14 mm. broad, 
10-11 mm. thick, covered by the very adherent integument, finely pitted, with a small 
central superficial chalazal fovea on the raphal side; albumen very deeply ruminate, 
or penetrated almost to the centre with narrow channels filled with a substance of 
the appearance of coagulated blood; embryo central on the face opposite to the 
chalazal fovea and deeply penetrating the albumen. 
Hasrrat.—N. E. India: Chittagong, Roxburgh ; Khasia Hills in the Ladder valley, 
1,000 m., and at Churra 1,200 m. Hooker $ Thomson in Herb. Kew; Cachar, R. L. 
Keenan in Herb. Kew; Upper Assam, on the banks of the Dhunsiri River, G. Mann 
in Herb. Kew; Doyan forest and Naga Hills, Mann in Herb. Becc.—Native name 
in Chittagong, “Mapuri Bet” (Roxburgh), in Assam “Oahing Bet" (G. Mann). 
OssERvATIONS.—This is a very distinct species by its short leaves with lanceolate, 
conspicuously grouped leaflets, which do not point in different directions but are 
arranged in one plane, those of one side opposite to those of the other side and the 
groups separated by long vacant spaces; furthermore very few Calami have the seed 
ruminated with the embryo in the centre of one of the faces and not basal. In 
s it approaches C. melanacanthus, but this has leaves with numerous equidistant 
ets, 
I have described the male spadix from some specimens sent by Wallich to the 
botanic garden of Copenhagen. | 3 
Prate 124.—Calamus gracilis Rozb. Upper portion of a leaf-sheath with base of 
a leaf and of a spadix; upper portion of a leaf; the spadix, of which the base is 
attached to the sheath—it bears ripe fruit; one seed seen from the raphal and 
another from the embryo side; one transversally and one longitudinally cut through 
the embryo.—From Mann’s specimens. from the. Khasia Hills, in Herb. Beec.—One 
fruit-spadix with the terminal cirrus, on the left side of the plate, from the Dayan 
Forest (Mann in Herb. Beco.). 
