Calamus.! CLXIII. PALMED. (Beccari & Hook, f.) 437 



flagellum ; sheath armed, produced into a ligula or ochrea, and with or 

 without a lateral armed flagellum. Spadices axillary, usually elongate, 

 much branched, sometimes produced into a flagellum. Spathes tubular or 

 open, persistent, sheathing the peduncle and branches of the spadix and 

 passing into bracts and bracteoles (spathels and spathellules). Flowers 

 small, polygamo-dioecious, in usually distichous often scorpioid spikelets 

 solitary or binate (a fern, or male or both) in the bracteoles. MALE FL. 

 Calyx cupular, 3-toothed. Petals 3, acute, coriaceous, valvate. Stamens 

 6, filaments short, anthers dorsifixed. FEM. FL. slightly accrescent, fruiting 

 pedicelliform or |explanate. Calyx of the male. Corolla tubular below, 

 3-fid, valvate. Stqminodes forming a cup. Ovary incompletely 3-celled, 

 clothed with retrorse scales ; style short or rather long, stigmas 3 ; ovules 

 basilar, erect. Fruit globose or ellipsoid ; style terminal ; pericarp thin, 

 clothed with appressed deflexed closely imbricating polished scales. Seed 

 subglobose or oblong, smooth or pitted ; albumen equable or ruminate ; 

 embryo ventral or basal. Species about 160-170 trop. Asiatic, Malayan, 

 Australian and a few trop. African. 



The following arrangement of the groups and species is taken from Beccari's niss. 

 The diagnoses and descriptions of the species are from his rough notes and the works 

 of Koxburgh, Griffith, Martius and Kurz, in all cases aided by specimens when I had 

 access to them. J. D. H. 



GROUP I. Leaves with many equidistant leaflets. Spathe 1st, elongate- 

 tubular, dilated and lacerate above ; 2nd, tubular, infundibular. Spadix 

 with the partial infl. and spikelets provided with a pedicellar portion 

 included in their respective spathes. Fruiting perianth explanate. 

 Spathellule of fern. fl. short, not pedicelliform. Sp. 1-9. 



GROUP II. Leaves with very few radiating or digitate leaflets, rachis 

 not flagelliferous ; leaf sheath fhigelliferous. Spathe 1st very long, tubular, 

 mouth lacerate ; 2nd, thick, inflated, lacerate. Spadices male and fern, 

 simply decompound ; partial infl. and spikelets with a pedicelled portion 

 inserted at the mouth or back of their respective spathes. Fruiting 

 perianth explanate. ~ Spathellules of fern. fl. short, not pedicelliform. Fruit 

 scales more than 12-15-seriate. Seed not ruminate ; embryo basilar. 

 (Slender scandent species ; stamens 2-seriate, filaments thickened at the 

 base, tips not inflected). Sp. 10-12. 



GROUP III. Leaves paripinnate, leaflets equidistant ; rachis not flagelli- 

 ferous, leaf-sheath flagelliferous. SpatJie 1st, elongate-tubular, closely 

 sheathing. Partial infl. and spikelets (inserted at the mouth and back of 

 the spathe). Fruiting calyx explanate or hardly callous and pedicelliform. 

 Spathellules of fern. fl. not pedicelliform. Seeds not dorsally ruminate- 

 alveolate ; embryo basilar. Sp. 13-31. 



GROUP IV. Rachis of leaves not flagelliferous ; leaf-sheath flagelliferous 

 or not. Spathe 1st very long, at first tubular closed, at length longitudi- 

 nally split open, loriform, laminar or foliaceous. Seed not superficially 

 alveolate ; albumen equable. Sp. 32-39. 



GROUP V. Rachis of leaves not flagelliferous ; sheath flagelliferous. 

 Spathe 1st submerabranous, at first elongate tubular at length longitudi- 

 nally more or less split and partly sublaminar. Fruiting calyx more or 



