B. polystachys. |  BECCARI. MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS CALAMUS. 883 
subpedicellate, irregularly lobulate at the margin and obsoletely 2-keeled on the 
side next to the axis; involucre irregularly or somewhat unilaterally cupular, slightly 
exceeding the .involucrophorum; areola of the neuter flower hidden between the 
involucra, small, vertically evolute, elliptic-acute, sharply bordered. Neuter flowers 
small, often persistent. Female flowers ovoid, about 5 mm. long. Fruiting perianth 
explanate but subtended by the subpedicelliform involucrophorum; the calyx split to 
the base into three ovate lobes; the segments of the corolla slightly narrower and as 
long. Fruit obovoid, oblong, somewhat tapering towards the base, rounded at the 
summit where topped by a small conic beak, 15-16 mm. long and about 1 cm. 
broad; scales in 18 series, deeply channelled along the middle, subshining, light 
brown, very slightly prolonged into a rather obtuse point, with a very narrow rusty- 
brown intramarginal line, their margin narrowly scarious, finely erosely-toothed. Seed 
ovoid, rounded at both ends, 11 mm. long, 8 mm. broad, 6 mm, thick, slightly 
flattened and with an elongate chalazal fovea on the raphal side, not very deeply 
and irregularly grooved on the back; albumen equable as the depressions of the 
surface are too shallow for a permanent intrusion of the integument; embryo basal, 
Hasirat.—Ceylon. The western provinces in the district of Saffragam, Thwaites 
C. P. No. 3925. 
Oxservations.—As I have already pointed out when speaking of C. zeylanicus, 
the specimens of the leaves distributed by Thwaites of this have been apparently 
mixed with those of C, ovoideus. These two species are certainly related and have 
many characters in common, but the seed of C, zeylanicus is deeply ruminated, 
whereas that of C. ovoideus has only some slight depressions on its surface where 
the intrusions of the integument are very superficial, and consequently the seed 
cannot be called ruminate. Of the type-specimens I have seen a few female partial 
inflorescences with mature fruit and different fragments of the leaves, but not 
the leaf-sheaths which are described after Trimen. In the Calcutta Herbarium the 
specimen of a portion of the fruit-spadix is accompanied by the summit of a non- 
cirriferous leaf with the leaflets as described above; this leaf seemingly is from a 
young plant or from the lower part of the stem. ; 
The main characters of C. ovoideus are the leaves with rachis spinous at the 
sides in the lower portion and on the angle upwards in the upper surface; the 
numerous equidistant ensiform very acuminate leaflets with long bristles on 8 
nerves beneath and in the upper surface usually bristly on the two side-nerves; 
the large not eirriferous spadix with stout stalked inflorescences, the oblong obovate 
beaked fruit; the slightly irregularly furrowed seed and the non-ruminate albumen. 
Pirate 161.—Calamus ovoideus Zw. Portion of the upper part of a leaf 
probably ^a radical one or of the lower part of the stem, seen from the upper 
surface; an entire partial inflorescence with mature fruit; two detached fruits; seed, 
side and front view; one seed longitudinally cut in two halves,—From €. P. 
No. 3925 in Herb. Kew. 
. 197. CALAMUS POLYSTACHYS Becc. sp. n. 
Descrietion.—Sheathed stem 3°5-4 cm. in diam,  Leaf-sheaths coriaceous, covered 
when young with a rusty cottony indumentum and ornamented in their upper 
