P. billitonensis. PLECTOCOMIA. 33 
that exposed, and is armed with brown, needle-like, unequal, 5—15 mm. long spines, 
confluent by their bases and digitate or forming short radiating series; the. petiole 
in that leaf is 30 em. long, wide channelled above, armed in its lower part with 
the same kind of spines as the sbeath, but larger and stronger; the rhachis is 
subterete and like the petiole is clothed with a soft, rather dense, tobacco-coloured 
indumentum, partly detachable, and along the dorsum has a line of single claws 
which become 2-3-nate above ; the pinniferous part is 1°20 m. long; the leaflets are 
covered below with a thin coating of rusty scurf, apparently deciduous with age; 
are about 40 in all, the lower and uppermost solitary, the others approximate in 
distant groups of 2—4 on each side of the rhachis; are very narrowly lanceolate ; 
gradually taper above to a slightly asymmetrical acuminate point, the lower margin 
of which terminates 2—3 em. below the tip in a small spinule, at times however 
obsolete ; otherwise the margins are smooth and slightly thickened ; the intermediate 
leaflets, the largest, are 35—40 cm. long, 3 cm. wide. One of the uppermest leaves 
bearing at its axilla a branch of the inflorescence, is rather large, has the leaf-sheath 
slightly spinous on the dorsum and on the margins near the mouth; the petiolar 
part is 10 em. long, and 2 em. wide, the rhachis is robust and in the intermediate 
portion obsoletely angular, powerfully armed with 3—5-nate claws; the leaflets are 
very unequidistant, and scattered, not very distinctly grouped, very elongate, 
ensiform, very gradually acuminate to a very finely subulate tip; are thickly 
papyraceous. though, green above, rather more or less distinctly rusty-furfuraceous 
beneath; the margins smooth, thickened, the secondary nerves rather prominent ; the 
intermediate leaflets are 50—55 cm. long, 2 cm. wide, the lower are narrower. 
Male spadix . . . . Female spadix as usual composed of several branches or 
partial inflorescences each issuing from the axilla of a leaf gradually reduced, one 
partial inflorescence, apparently one of the lowest, is composed of 5 very approximate 
spikes, recurved and pendulous; the spikes have a very short peduncular part, 
sheathed by some empty spathels and are 60—70 cm. long; their main axis is 
terete, 5 mm. thick, smooth, very slightly furfuraceous; spathels 15 mm. apart, 
very concave, broadly rhomboidal, bluntish, 2 cm. long and as wide, broadest 
about their middle or a little above that; their upper half widely triangular. 
frequently sharply defined by a' projecting tooth on the margin at both sides, 
thinly coriacious, very Yigid, of a very dark chestnut-brown colour, finely striate, 
quite glabrous, otherwise very similar to those of Pl. Mueller. Spikelets very short, 
bearing only 3—4 pedicellate flowers; the pedicels trigonous, slender, 3—4 mm. 
long, glabrous; every flower is furnished with a subulate bract, 3—4 mm. long. 
Female flowers 1 cm. long (not taking into account the protruding stigmas); the 
calyx has a solid, very narrow, trigonus, glabrous, 4 mm. long, pedicelliform basal 
part and is suddenly expanded ‘above into a limb, parted into 3 ovate, finely striate 
apieulate lobes; the corolla, slightly longer than the calyx, has.a shallow cupular 
base, but otherwise is almost entirely parted into 3 rigid, triangular-lanceolate 
acuminate segments; the sterile stamens form with the confluent broadened bases 
of the filaments a very shallow cup. lining the undivided part of the corolla, and 
divided into 6 deltoid, suddenly long-subulate teeth, bearing oblong or linear 
anthers; ovary globular-ovoid, soon becoming broadly turbinate and  obsoletely 
trilobed, covered with scales having a fimbriate-laciniate tip; the stigmas trigonous, 
subulate, 6 mm. long. Fruit 
ANN. Roy. Bor. GARD., CALCUTTA, Vor. XII. 
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