108 cxLYii. PAXM^ (weight). [Colamus. 



of ovary minute or absent. Female flower : Calyx cupular, trifid. 

 Corolla tubular at the base ; lobes 3, ovate, acute, valvate. Staminodes 

 G, united into a cup free from or adnate to the corolla-tube. Ovary 

 ovoid or globose, incompletely 3 -celled ; style short or long ; stigmas 

 short or long ; ovules 3, erect. Fruit globose or ellipsoid, 1- (very 

 rarely 2-3-) seeded ; style terminal ; pericarp covered with retrorsely 

 imbricate scales. Seed various in shape, smooth or sinuously sulcate, 

 suberect; chalaza lateral; branches of the raphe extending from the 

 chalaza to opposite the position of the subbasal or central embryo ; 

 albumen homogeneous or slightly ruminate. — Armed, usually slender 

 palms. Stems long climbing, rarely erect, remotely ringed. Leaves 

 remote, equally pinnate ; leaflets equidistant or fascicled, usually setose 

 on the nerves and margins ; rhachis usually prolonged into a long leaf- 

 less spiny cirrhus ; petiole short or long, trigonous ; sheath spiny, some- 

 times bearing a long spiny flagellum from one side. Spadices short or 

 long, with slender, (rarely thick) paniculate branches, polygamous or 

 dioecious ; spathes many, tubular ; bracts densely imbricate ; flowers 

 distichous or subdistichous on the branches, 1 or 2 to each bract ; 

 bracteoles free or connate. 



Species about 200, chiefly in Ti-opical and Subtropical Asia, and a few in Australia. 



Leaflets linear-lanceolate. 



Fruit ovoid, pointed, brown 1 . C. deeratiis. 



Fruit globose, obtuse, mucronatc, reddiili . . 2. C nicjer. 



Leaflets oblong-lanceolate . . . . . 3. C Barteri. 



Leaflets obovate-trapezoid 4. C. Cabrce. 



1. C. deerratus, Mann d- Wendl. in Trans. Linn. Soc. xxiv. 429, 

 t. 4:1, Jig. F. Stem climbing, 20-25 ft. long. Leaves about 5 ft. long, 

 ovate, patent ; sheath cylindrical, tight, unarmed below, with transverse 

 rows of recurved subulate-conical spines above, oblique and furnished 

 with very acute spine's at the mouth ; petiole semiterete, 3 in. long, 

 6 lin. thick, slightly channelled above, margins and back with a few 

 erect subulate spines 9-12 lin. long; leaflets linear-lanceolate, much 

 contracted at the base, acuminate, about 35 on each side, alternate, 

 equidistant, 7-nerved, with black bristles on the margins and under 

 (rarely upper) side of the nerves, and minute light brown scales on the 

 undersurface ; central leaflets 14-15 in. long, 12-14 lin. wide, 1-lJ in. 

 apart ; terminal leaflets G in. long. Spadix elongate, slender, decurved, 

 main axis prolonged into a very long terete naked appendage, primary 

 branches twice or thrice simply branched ; peduncle connate at the 

 base with the sheath of the uppermost leaf ; spathes long, cylindrical, 

 obliquely split at the apex, the lowest about 1 ft. long, ancipitous and 

 distantly spinulose on the margins, the upper unilateral and sparingly 

 spiny ; bracts cup-shaped, obliquely acuminate, bracteoles dense, smaller 

 than the bracts and less acuminate ; flower-bearing branches 2 in. long. 

 Male flowers 3 lin. long, solitary, yellow. Calyx cup-shaped, trifid ; 

 lobes broadly-ovate. Corolla twice as long as the calyx, tripartite ; 

 lobes oblong-ovate. Stamens 6 ; filaments subulate, united at the base ; 

 anthers linear-oblong, sagittate at the base. Rudiment of ovary glo- 



