96 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. LC. aistichus. 
at times armed with straggling  spinules, truncate and glabrous at the 
mouths, apiculate at one side; spikelets inserted outside the mouths of their 
respective spathes, spreading, slender, zig-zag sinuous between the flowers, all of 
about the same length, 5-6 ecm. long, with relatively few (6-8) rather distant 
flowers on each side; spathels infundibular, truncate at the mouths, produced at 
one side into triangular acute points, sprinkled with rusty scales; involucro- ` 
phorum attached outside its own spathel at the base of the one above, concave, 
deeply excavate and bidentate on the side next to the axis; iuvolucre immersed 
in the involucrophorum, irregularly cupular; areola distinctly lunate. Fruiting 
perianth almost explanate; the calyx slightly callous at the base, divided down to 
the base into 3 ovate-lanceolate acuminate lobas; the segments of the corolla 
lanceolate, about as long as the lobes of the calyx. Frut exactly spherical, shortly 
beaked, 10-11 mm. in diameter; scales in 18 longitudinal series, squarrose, thin, 
flat, very faintly grooved along the centre, of a dirty straw-colour, lighter on the 
edges, the point reddish, and slightly produced ; margins distinctly erose-toothed. 
Seed globular, boldly tubercled and deeply pitted; the albumen rendered ruminate 
by the intrusion of the integument within the pits. The leaves, united to the 
fruiting spadix and belonging to the upper part of the stem, are 50-65 cm. long 
in the pinniferous part, and have a very short petiolar part; the leaflets are usually 
furnished with one rigid erect spine only on the upper surface of the  mid-costa, 
but at times these spines number 2-3 or are wanting altogether. The sheathed stem 
is about 2 em, in diameter. In a male specimen collected by Curran in Luzon, 
Province of Bataan (No. 17309 in the Herbarium at Manila) the leaflets are quite 
smooth on both surfaces, and have only a few small spimules on the margins, 
148v. Carawus pisticnus Ridley, Mat. Fl. Mal. Penins. ii, 208. 
Derscriprion.—Slender and scandent. Sheathed stem about 15 mm. in diameter. 
Leaf—sheaths armed with flat spines about 15 mm. long (Ridley). The leaves terminate 
in a slender clawed cirrus, are about 30 cm. long in the pinniferous part and 
have several pairs of leaflets on each side of the rachis; petiole very short 
(8-45 cm, long! armed on the edges with short, strong spines (Ridley); the 
rachis in its upper portion of the upper surface is bifaced and has an acute 
smooth salient angle while underneath it is armed with several solitary, scattered, 
very small claws; leaflets geminate or in pairs, 5-7 cm. apart, on each side of the 
rachis (the two of each pair very approximate by their rather acute bases and 
divergent) conspicuously concave-convex or cochleariform, elliptical, almost equally 
natrowed to both ends, rather suddenly acuminate to a non-bristly tip, the tip 
itself often  bidentieulate, papyraceous, rigidulous, green, slightly paler underneath 
than above, with 5-7 very slender costae slightly prominent on the upper surface ; 
the central costa barely stronger than the side ones, all quite glabrous and smooth 
on both surfaces; transverse veinlets numerous, rather continuous and very 
sharp; the margins very inconspicuously scabrid when seen under a lens; all 
leatlets, even those of the terminal pair, are of about the same size, 11-12 em. 
long, 2°5-3 em. broad. Male spadix not cirriferous, very slender, about.75 cm. long, 
simply decompound, with only 4 partial inflorescences ; it terminates in a small, very 
slender, flattened, taillike, smooth appendage 4 cm. long; primary spathes elongate- 
tubular, very closely sheathing, the lowest 18 cm. long, strongly  flattened, very 
