C. optimus.) BECCARL MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS CALAMUS. 425 
Prate 187.—Calamus erioacanthus Bece.—An intermediate portion of a sheathed 
stem with an entire leaf.—From P. B, No. 1934. 
> 
158. Catamus optimus Becc. Nelle Foreste di Borneo, 610, and in Rec. Bot. 
Surv. Ind. ii, 211. 
Description.—Slender, high scandent, glabrescent in every part.  Sheathed stem 
12-15 mm. in diam. Zeaf-sheaths gibbous above, armed with large, solitary, scattered, 
deflexed, laminar, robust, almost claw-shaped spines, of which the largest 2°5 cm. 
in length, and with a very broad, deeply underneath excavate and above tumescent 
base. Leaves cirriferous, comparatively short, 70-80 cm. long in the pinniferous 
portion ; the cirrus itself sometimes even a metre in length, armed at very regular 
and gradually shorter intervals with half-whorls of rather robust light-based and 
black-tipped claws; petiole rather short (6-12 cm. long), broadly channelled 
above, rounded beneath, where armed along the middle and near the margins 
with a few strong scattered claws; rachis in the pinniferous part bifaced above, 
strongly armed beneath like the terminal cirrus ; leaflets very few, 6-8 in all, solitary 
and very distant on each side, lower ones subopposite, oblanceolate or oblong- 
lanceolate or sub-spathulate, somewhat concavo-convex, green above, whitish or very 
sparingly mealy beneath vues in young leaves, with 4-6 acute rather slender 
costae, which are naked on both surfaces, long and gradually narrowed towards the 
base, very suddenly contracted at the summit into a short triangular, laterally 
bristly-spinulous tip; transverse veinlets very slender, excessively numerous, very close 
together and very continuous, especially sharp in the upper surface, but visible also 
underneath; margins appressedly and remotely spinulous, the lower one bordered 
on the upper side with a polished band, a few others usually occur also 
in the middle of the blade; the largest leaflets, the intermediate, 32-35 cm. long 
and 5:5-6 cm. broad, the upper and lower ones slightly smaller. In one specimen 
a radical leaf is very large with a petiole 1:2 m. in length, terete and armed in 
its lower portion with long, strong and horizontal spines, and only with a large 
terminal flabellum which is 85 cm. long, parted from a little above the base into 
two oblong lobes; these 12-13 cm. broad and with 7 robust and acute costae. 
Hasrrat.—Borneo at Kuching near Sarawak, Beccari P. B. Nos. 1907 and 1917. 
Malay name in Sarawak “ Rotang Segah” and “ R. Buluch.” 
 OnsERVATIONS.—AÀ very near ally of C. cwsius, but distinct by the sheaths armed 
with much larger spines, by the longer petioles and chiefly by the leaflets solitary, 
very distant, not geminate on each side of the rachis and not distinctly covered with 
a mealy glaucous crustaceous indumentum. ‘The canes slender, very tough and 
elastic, with a yellow glossy vitreous surface, are very much esteemed in commerce. 
In Sarawak it is considered as the best Rotang produced in the country, where 
however it is now becoming scarce. 
Prate 188.—Calamus optimus Bece.—Portion of a sheathed  tem,—(from 
P. B. No. 1917); an entire leaf with the upper portion of its sheath; from 
P. B. No. 1907. : 
Ann. Roy. Bor. Garp, Catcutra Vor. XI. 
