Qi palustris. | BECCARI. MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS CALAMUS. 403 
very superficially channelled along the middle, almost shining, dirty | straw-coloured 
with a reddish-brown intramarginal line which broadens near the point, this very 
short scarious, triangular, obtuse and finely erosely toothed, Seed ovoid, somewhat 
flattened, rounded at both ends, 10 mm. long., 7 mm. broad, 6 mm. thick, conve 
and rather deeply and irregularly pitted on the back, flattish and with an oblong 
and rather deep chalazal fovea on the raphal side; albumen equable; embryo hasal. 
Hanrrar.—Grifüith's type-specimens were gathered at Pular in the Province of 
Mergui on the coast of Tenasserim, where it‘ was also collected by Sir Dietrich 
Brandis in the Salween valley at 1000 met. elevation (Herb. Becc. and Cale.); in 
the Pegu Yomah at Wakyoung, Kure No. 1473 in H. Cale. In the Andamans it 
seems a common plant, and I have seen from there numerous specimens collected by 
Kurz, Liebig, by Sir G. King's collectors (Herb. Cale.) and by Mr. Man (Herb. 
Becc.); in the Nicobars, King’s collector. 
In the Andamans it receives the name of “Wai,” and it is employed by the 
natives to make knives known by the name of ‘Wai-chd” (see Man: the Andaman 
Islanders 69, 185). In Burma it is named “Yamata” according to Kurz. 
OssERvaTIONS.— Griffith founded the species in the upper part of a leaf and the 
summit of a male spadix—materials which I have not seen, but some of the 
Specimens at my disposal agree so well with the picture that Griffith has published 
of them that I have no doubt about their being conspecific. 
I consider also the Calamus which Kurz described and figured as latifolius, and 
of which I have seen the specimen studied by him in the Calcutta Herbarium, 
as undoubtedly referable to C. palustris, 
From the Andamans Mr. E. H. Man forwarded to me very complete specimens 
which, like those of Kurz, agree pretty well with those of the Tenasserim Coast ; 
their leatlets are very variable in size, some attaining 45 cm. in length and 6 
em. in width with 7-9 costae, while others are 35-37 by 7-8 cm. In one 
specimen a leaf, probably a radical one, is not cirriferous but terminates in two 
broad leaflets confluent at their base. 
In the male spadix and also in the armature of the leaf-sheaths C. latifolius 
resembles C. ornatus a good deal. As I have already observed, C. palustris is with 
difficulty distinguishable from C. latifolius (see observations on this species). 
As C. palustris is a very variable species, I subjoin a few observations about 
the specimens from which I have derived the description above.  Kurz's sterile 
specimen No. 1473 in H. Cale. from the Pegu Yomah evidently belongs to a very 
luxuriant plant probably not yet floriferous; the petiole is 20 cm. long, quite smooth 
above, 17 mm. broad, armed at the sides with robust straight spines; a leaf-sheath 
is strongly gibbous above and seemingly 3°5-4 cm. in diam; armed with very large, 
somewhat deflexed, quite light-coloured spines, of which some are as much as 3 cm. 
long with a base 10-14 mm, broad and concave beneath; the rachis in its upper 
part is obsoletely 3-gonous and strongly armed with black-tipped half-whorled claws; 
in the cirrus the whorls of the claws are gradually more approximate as they 
Axx. Roy. Bor. Garp. Catcutra Vor. XI. 
