P. elmerii: PLECTOCOMIA. 35 
borne on very short furfuraceous pedicels ; every flower furnished with a subulate 
bract 4—6 mm. long. Female flowers 18—20 mm. long (not taking into account the 
protruding stigmas); the calyx has a solid, very narrow, tapering trigonous, glabrous, 
8—10 mm. long, pedicelliform part, and. is suddenly expanded above into a limb 
parted into 3 ovate apiculate lobes; the corolla slightly longer than the calyx, has a 
shallow eupular base, and is otherwise almost entirely parted into 3 rigid triangular- 
lanceolate, acuminate segments: the sterile stamens form with the confluent broadened 
bases of the filaments a shallow cup divided into 6 deltoid, suddenly long-subulate 
teeth, bearing oblong or linear anthers; ovary globular-ovoid, strigose ; stigmas 
trigonous, subulate, 7 mm. long. Fruit globose, slightly depressed, 25—27 mm. in 
diameter, very shortly mammillate and also beaked with the remains of the stigmas 
and of a general glabrous appearance. The pericarp is very thin and brittle; the 
scales are shiny, of a dirty straw colour with darker margins and tips, sharply 
and narrowly grooved along the centre, the tip somewhat produced, and like the 
margins, minutely ciliate-fringed. Seed globular, somewhat depressed, 15 mm. high, 
19—22 mm. broad in one direction, and a few mm. less in the other; the integument 
is very scanty, thin and adherent to the nucleus, the surface of which is obsoletely 
marked by bold ridges, divided by shallow vertical furrows descending from the 
punctiform apical chalaza; embryo basal. 
Hamrrar.—The Island of Mindanao. Discovered by A. D. Elmer in Sept. 1909 
at Todaya (Mt. Apo), District of Davao at about 1000 m. elev. ( Elmer No. 11877 
in Herb. Bece. ). 
OBsERVATIONS.—Evidently allied to P. Muellerii and P. billitonensis, but doubtless 
distinet, especially by its larger flowers having an extraordinarily long pedicelliform 
calyx, and by the larger non-hairy fruits. Its diagnostic notes are: The general large 
size of the plant ; ihe leaf-rhachis finely grey tomentose ; the leaflets in groups 
destitute of any kind of indumentum underneath ; the female spadix with broadly 
rhomboidal glabrous spathels and smooth, slightly furfuraceous main axis; the female 
spikelets composed of 4—5 relatively large flowers, having the calyx tapering to a long 
trigonous narrow base, and expanded above into a 3-parted limb ; the corolla slightly 
longer than the calyx; the ovary strigose; the fruit large, globular depressed, very 
shortly mammillate and supported by a conspicuous pedicelliform perianth ; the scales 
sharply grooved, not fimbriate ; the large seed, globular depressed, uneven. 
I reproduce here Merrill’s field note, which gives additional information about 
this fine Palm, not obtainable from the herbarium specimens at my disposal : 
"Large tree climber in jungles of dense woods on a ridge or along streamlets 
at 3,000 feet on the Talon side of the mountain range; old stem yellowish-green 
or, when young, glaucous-green, terete, hard, smooth, rigid, 2 to 3 inches thick at 
least; the leaf bearing portion 4 inches thick at least ; leaves alternatingly scattered, 
every. foot or so, ascendingly recurved, 12 feet long, terminated by at least 7 feet 
long. hooked rhachis; petiole 2 feet long, glaucous-green along the smooth under- 
side, widely grooved on the upper, provided with yellowish spines along the edges ; 
leaflets in groups, twisted and ascending from . the yellowish bases, strongly 
recurved, similarly deep green on both sides, tough, not rigid; rhachis grooved 
along the upper side; convex beneath, hooked its full length, otherwise smooth ; 
ANN. Hox. Bor. GARD, CALCUTTA, VoL. XII. 
