76 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. — [Q. palembanicus. 
at the mouth which is edged by a narrow, dry, membranous, glabrous rim: they are 
thick and woody, glabrous and of a greenish straw colour, powerfully armed with very 
unequal scattered spines, of which some are large and very strong with a very broad 
swollen base concave below and a woody, straight, slightly-deflexed, brownish point, 
10-15 mm, long: others are smaller but of the same shape, while the smallest are 
reduced to small bulbous horizontal prickles; ligule very short, triangular, woody, 
glabrous. Leaves apparently cirriferous (the one seen is incomplete), 1°50 m. long or 
thereabouts in the pinniferous part; petiole very short, the lowest leaflets being attached 
only 5-8 cm. above the mouth of the sheath; it is—like the first portion of the rachis— 
3 mm. broad, flat above, convex underneath with the edges acute and occasionally 
armed with a robust spine; higher up the rachis, which is glabrous throughout, has 
a smooth salient angle (at first obtuse, then acute) and flat side-faces above, and is 
armed underneath with a line of single black claws along the centre, and a few 
scattered prickles at the sides; the claws become ternate towards the upper end which 
apparently terminates in a clawed cirrus, but this part is wanting in the specimen 
seen by me. Leaflets not very numerous, more or less distinctly geminate on each 
side of the rachis, with vacant spaces i0-20 cm. long interposed between the pairs; 
those of each pair also rather distant from each other (from 1°5 to 3 em. apart): they 
are narrowly lanceolate, giadually tapering from the middle downwards to an acute 
base and upwards to an acuminate and at the sides minutely-bristly spinulous apex: 
they are thinly papyraceous, almost glossy on the upper surface, slightly paler and 
dull underneath, quite smooth and glabrous on both surfaces, distinctly 3-costulate, and, 
at times, ‘sub-5-costulate; the costae are slender but sharp, and of equal strength with 
a few fine secondary nerves between them; transverse veinlets numerous, very fine 
and much interrupted; margins appressedly, minutely and remotely spinulous; the 
intermediate leaflets are 30-35 cm. long, 25-27 mm. broad; the upper leaflets are 
shorter and narrower: those near the base are very narrow (7-12 mm. broad), slightly 
shorter than the mesial and more spreading. Male spadix « Of the 
female spadiz l have seen only two, perhaps not entire, bíacichiome boisini the spikelets 
(partial inflorescences}; the branchlets are rigid, short, thickish, and have the spathes 
infundibuliform, obliquely truncate, and loosely sheathing at the mouth, which is 
prolonged at one side into a short triangular ciliate point; they narrow considerably 
in their lower part, where they are flat with acute edges on the axial side and are 
slightly arraed with a few scattered, very minute prickles; the lowest spathe is 
about 3 cm. long, 7-8 mm. broad at the mouth; spikelets short and thick, inserted 
above the mouth of their respective spathes, spreading and slightly arched; the 
lowest spikelet is 5-7 cm. long and bears 10-14 flowers on each side: the others 
are gradually slightly shorter; spathels closely packed, subscurfily-puberulous, very 
shortly asymmetrically infundibuliform, ciliate, produced at one side into a concave, 
broadly-triangular point subtending the fruits; involucrophorum shallowly cupular, 
bidentate, and two-keeled on the side next to the axis; involucre hardly distin- 
guishable from the  involucrophorum and immersed in it, irregularly cupular, 
excavate and bidentate on the side of the neuter flower, of which the areola is 
distinctly lunate and sharply edged. Fruiting perianth explanate; the calyx split 
down almost to the base into 3 ovate acute lobes; the corolla as long as the 
calyx, its divisions smaller than the lobes of the calyx. Fruit apparently ovoid-ellip- 
tical (not one seen entire), probably about 12 mm. long and 8-9 mm. thick; scales 
