8 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN. CALCUTTA. C. discolor. 
its lower portion, with ternate robust claws; petiole and rhachis clothed with a 
cottony, fluffy, detachable indumentum; cirrus up to 1°50 m. long, irregularly and 
powerfully clawed. Leaflets 5—7 on. each side of the ‘rhachis, alternate or suboppo- 
site, rigid-panyraceous, rhomboidal -or broadly cuneately rhomboidal, radiately-plicate 
along several very slender primary nerves, that of the centre being slightly the 
stronger, conspicuously discolorous, green above, mealy white beneath; the base 
acute and non-ansate; the upper margins irregularly subduplicately lobulate and 
erosely toothed, the lobules more or less minutely setose-aristate ; the apex acute or 
produced into a triangular acuminate point; the intermediate leaflets of the quite adult 
plant are 20—40 cm. long, and 10—18 em. wide, those of both ends or of younger 
plants smaller. Male spadix . . . . Female spadix sessile, erect; the spathe very 
large, 55 cm. long, 10 em. wide (in one specimen), oblanceolate-spathulate or subellip- 
tical, strongly flattened with. very sharp edges, narrowing below to a rather acute base 
and suddenly contracted above to a stout beak, 5—6 cm. long, the beak only split 
in two halves during the anthesis; the margins near the base have a few reversed 
‘spinescent teeth, otherwise they are almost smooth or obsoletely minutely toothed ; 
the body is thinly coriaceous, of a cinnamon brown colour, darker inside, partially 
‘covered outside with a detachable thin tobacco coloured seurf, which leaves the denud- 
ed surface very minutely pitted, when observed with a lens. The female panicle 
during the anthesis is strict, elongate and narrow, about 50 cm. long, twice branched ; 
its main axis is slightly flattened, 6—7 mm. broad, alternately bearing several ‘gradu- 
ally smalle£ fastigiate angular branches, which are divided again into several gradually 
smaller flower-bearing branchlets; the spathes at the base of each primary branch 
are membranous. have a short infundibular part, and are produced at one side into a 
narrow, long, subulate point; the spathes of the secondary branches are smaller 
and have a shorter point; the flower-bearing branchlets. have alternate, shortly 
infundibuliform, truncate spathels, produced at one side into an acute point; at 
each flexure of the branchlets are two flowers, one of which is a female and the 
other a neuter, both suffulted by, a shallowly cupular 3-toothed involucrophorum 
and an involucre; the areola of the neuter’ flower is punctiform. Female flowers 
have a.broad roundish base and a trigonous acute upper ‘part, are 6 mm. long 
and 4 mm. broad; the calyx is membranous,. very short, shallowly cupular, 3- 
toothed ; the corolla is considerably longer than the calyx, parted to a little above 
the base into 3 deltoid acute segments, its undivided part being very short; 
‘filaments adnate in their lower part to the base of the corolla, triangular- 
subulate i in their free part, and bearing linear-sagittate sterile anthers; ovary globose 
covered with large suborbicular fimbriate Scales; stigmas sessile, elongate, thick 
spreading and recurved. Neuter flowers very similar to the female ones, about as 
long but narrower; the corolla has a short undivided part, the segments are triangu- 
lar acuminate; the filaments are elongate and subulate; the sterile anthers are 
very narrowly sagittate and inserted at the middle of the dorsum; no rudiments 
of an ovary. The spadix loaded with mature fruits forms a large panicle recurved 
by its weight, its spathe being destroyed. Fruit nearly spherical, 15—17 mm. in 
diam., the apex very shortly conically beaked, surmounted by the very small remains 
of the stigmas; scales in 12 longitudinal series, rhomboidal, broader than long, 
obtuse at apex, neatly grooved along the centre, of a uniform chestnut brown 
colour with a narrow darker marginant line, the margins obsoleteiy and very minutely 
