Oncocalamus.^ cxlvii. palm^e (wright). Ill 



Climbing palms with long slender stems. Leaves pinnate or bifurcate ; 

 rhachis produced into a cirrhus armed with weak spines. 



Species 2, endemic. 



Leaves pinnate ; leaflets about 16 on each side . .1.0. Mannii. 



Leaves bifurcate, or pinnate in the upper part only . 2. O. acanthocnemis. 



1. O. Mannii, Wendl.in Kerchove, Palm. 252. Stems about 60 ft. 

 long, 6-12 lin. thick. Leaves remote, 5-6 ft. long, dark green, copper- 

 coloured when young ; sheaths 1-1 1^ ft. long, cylindrical, clothed (as well 

 as the rhachis) with dark brown caducous or deliquescent scales ; stipules 

 sheathing, 6-9 lin. long, obliquely truncate ; rhachis sparingly and 

 minutely spiny at the margins, produced at the apex into a cirrhus 3 ft. 

 long armed with weak deflexed spines 6 lin. long and lJ-2 in. apart, 

 alternate below, opposite above ; upper leaflets about 1 6 on each side, 

 alternate or sub-opposite, long lanceolate, acute, slightly falcate, shining, 

 9-10 in. long, 12-15 lin. wide, midrib distinct, secondary nerves 6-7 on 

 each side, obscure, margins with minute distant spines ; lower leaflets 

 smaller and nearer together. Spadices 4-5 ft. long, dark brown, pen- 

 dulous, distichously branched, unarmed, naked at the base, clothed above 

 with tubular adpressed sheaths 2 in. long, truncate and irregularly 

 splitting at the mouth ; branches 10 in. long, pendulous, alternately 

 distichous, naked and adpressed to the spadix below, clothed above with 

 infundibuliform imbricate bracteoles splitting down one side. Flowers 

 fascicled, in the lower part of the branch in groups of 11, at the apex of 

 3, the central one female and ebracteolate, the lateral male, in equal 

 numbers on each side of the female, bracteolate. — Calamus [Oncocala- 

 mus) Mannii, Wendl. in Trans. Linn. Soc. xxiv. 436, t. 41, fig. E, t. 48, 

 fig. E. 



upper Guinea. Lagos : Ebuti Mettd, Millen, 18 ! Lagos Island, Barter, 

 20220 ! 



]Lower Cruinea. Graboon : Gaboon River, Mann, 1044 ! and on tlic Sierra del 

 Crystal, 1500 ft., ex Mann. 



2. O. acanthocnemis, DrudeinEngl. Jahrh. xxi. Ill, 133. Stem 

 slender, reed-like, 3 lin. thick; sheaths long, cylindrical, sparsely 

 covered all over with blackish reflexed spines. Leaves very shortly 

 petioled, simply bifurcate or irregularly pinnately divided between the 

 upper nerves ; lobes broadly lanceolate and acute when the leaf is 

 simply bifurcate, or when more divided the upper lobes narrowly 

 linear-lanceolate and 9-14 lin. apart, bearing marginal spines ^ lin. 

 long ; primary nerves about 8 on each side, prominent on the upper 

 surface, scarcely raised on the lower ; cirrhus many times longer than 

 the very short midrib, armed with slender spines, destitute of larger 

 prickles. Inflorescence and fruit unknown. 



Xiower Guinea. Gaboon : in intertwining masses (busbropes) in tlio woods, 

 Biittner, 527, 529 ; Gaboon River, Mann, 1044a I Congo : Bolobo, Hens, C, 170 ! 



8. EREMOSPATHA, Mann et Wendl. ; lienth. et Hook. f. 

 Gen. PI. iii. 936. 



Flowers hermaphrodite. Calyx campanulate, 3-toothed. Corolla 



