Palmdcetf* 



459 



Palms, like all other Endogenous plants, scarcely increase in 

 diameter, that is to say, they do not add to their size by concen- 

 tric woody layers, but the trunk merely lengthens and consoli- 

 dates as it unfolds new leaves. The flowers are either unisexual 



Fig. 221. Livistona australis. 



or hermaphrodite and individually small and inconspicuous, but 

 commonly exceedingly numerous and arranged on large 

 branching spadices enclosed in a foliaceous spathe, which opens 

 when the flowers are about to expand. The entire inflorescence 

 of some species is of immense proportions. The structure of 

 the flowers is tolerably uniform, being composed of 6 perianth- 

 segments in two more or less distinct series, and from 3 to 



