488 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. LC. ferrugineus 
HABITAT.—South China; in the Island of Hong-Kong near the sources of the 
River Taitamtuk discovered in 1873 by Dr. G. Dods. ( Herb. Hance. No. 18373). 
OBSERVATIONS.—I have seen of this only a very fragmentary specimen in the 
St. Petersburg Herbarium, and I have chiefly derived my description from Hance. 
It seems to belong to the group V, B, but in this is distinct from any other by 
its erect habit, with loosely sheathing, fibrous, dilacerate spathes and the leaves with 
very conspicuously clustered, ensiform leaflets: these very approximate in each fascicle 
and pointing different ways. 
PLATE 224.—Calamus thysanolepis Hance. An intermediate portion of the leaf 
with four fascicles of leaflets (upper surface); another small portion of the same leaf 
(lower surface); portion of a spikelet with mature fruit /nat. size); fruit magnified. 
From Hance’s No. 10373 in St. Petersburg Herb. i 
193. CALAMUS FERRUGINEUS Becc. in Rec. Bot. Surv. Ind. ii, 216 (excl. descript. 
of leaves ), 
DescrIPTION.—Scandent. Sheathed stem 12 mm. in diam. Leaf-sheaths gibbous, 
plicate above, rather strongly striate-costulate longitudinally, armed with a few scat- 
tered or seriate, but individually distinct, flat, horizontal, 10-12 mm..long spines and 
clothed while young, as almost any other part of the plant, with a rusty furfura- 
eeous, more or less sooner deciduous, scurf composed of small chaffy hairs which rest 
on very minute tubercles, these rendering very finely scabrid not only the sheaths but 
also the petiole, rachis, axial parts, spathes and to a certain extent even the spines. 
Leaves about 1 m. long in the pinniferous part (in one specimen) and terminating 
with a slender, 50 cm. long, cirrus; the petiole very short (6 em. long) plano- 
. Convex with not very acute margins, these sparingly armed only with a few strong, 
long, deflexed prickles; above the rachis is flattish at the base, with two narrow side 
faces where are inserted the lowest leaflets, then bifaced with the salient angle at first- 
obtuse but speedily acute; underneath at first convex, then flattish, armed in its basal 
part along the centre of the dorsum with a few but strong solitary straight 
deflexed 10-12 mm. long prickles which higher up become shorter, claw-like 
towards the summit and ternate only in the cirrus, always remaining with a slender 
very acuminate and very slightly curved point; leaflets rather few (30 on the whole 
in one specimen) opposite, the pairs equidistant, 6 cm. apart, all strongly deflexed, 
attached to the rachis by means of a slightly callous base; the callosity remaining 
above in the place where normally is the axil and by its position obliging the 
leaflet to bend downwards; beneath, just in the point where each leaflet springs from 
the rachis, is a small spine, which points in a contrary way to the prickles of the 
rachis; the leaflets are rather firmly papyraceous, green on both surfaces, narrowly 
lanceolate, all about of one size, 22-25 cm. long, 20-25 mm. broad, broadest about 
the middle and thence almost equally narrowing towards both ends, but rather suddenly 
narrowing at the summit into a 15-20 mm. long and at the sides bristly tip, not 
very distinctly plicate-3-costulate above and here with the  mid.costa alone sparingly 
spinulous towards the summit, underneath quite smooth; transverse veinlets not very 
conspicuous; margins with not numerous, spreading spinuliform bristles. Female spadiz- 
