P. assamica. PLECTOCOMIA. 39 
long; 2:5—3 cm. wide), subtruncate or abruptly terminated by a broad and low, 
triangular, acute or  bluntish point; their broadest part is 15—20 mm. only 
below the apex, and thence slightly tapers to a rather broad, concave, amplectent 
base; are thinly coriaceous, clothed outside from the base with a fine rusty 
tomentum, evanescent only in the upper triangular part. Spikelets composed of 3—7 
flowers, on the whole shorter than their respective spathels, tbe flowers are alter- 
nately distichous on a thickish angular, 15—25 mm. long axis, and are supported 
by 3—4 mm. long, thick, subclavate, trigonous pedicels; the axis and the pedicels 
rusty furfuraceous ; the bracteole at the base of every flower lanceolate—acuminate, 
recurved, 4—5 mm. long. ruit globular, 23—25 mm. in diameter slightly conically 
beaked from the persistent broadened bases of the stigmas, of a rich ferrug 
brown colour when dry, densely villous or woolly from the deeply ciliate-split, 
recurved, frizzled points of the scales. Seed globular (18 mm. in diameter in 
Griffith’s figure). Fruiting perianth explanate; the calyx splits into 3 ovate oblong 
parts; petals acuminate, considerably longer than the calyx and narrower than its 
divisions (in Griffith’s figure). 
Hanrrar.—Upper Assam  ( Griffith). 
OpsERvATIONS.—The original specimens upon which Griffith established this 
species still exist in the Calcutta Herbarium, and consist in some spikes having 
the spathels “much lacerated and split and partly -deficient” as Griffith says, and 
fragments of one fruit; these specimens are accompanied by the following label :— 
From Upper Assam. Rec. from Capt. Jenkins, il March 1840.—1 have based my 
deseription on these specimens ; but in the Caleutta Herbarium are preserved other 
specimens, corresponding pretty well to the typical ones, but apparently gathered 
from plants that had flowered in the Garden, consisting of some spikes of a female 
spadix bearing flowers just at the moment of their expansion ; these flowers are 
2 cm. long and about 1 cm. broad at their base; the calyx is at first cupular- 
campanulate, rounded and not thickened .at the ui striately veined, slightly furfura- 
ceous, ciliolate on the margins and having 3 broadly triangular subulate teeth ; later it 
splits into 3 very broad segments, suddenly contracted into a finely subulate tip, 
8 mm. long including the tip; the corolla is much longer than the caylx, at least twice 
and half as long; the petals from a broad base are narrowly lanceolate-subulate ; the 
ovary is coarsely woolly from the crisp laciniate points of the scales ; the style is very 
short, conical; the stigmas are trigonous, connivent, subulate, 1 cm. long and 
"shorter than the petals during the anthesis. : 
Although imperfectly known P. assamica is well characterized by its leaflets 
whitish beneath; by the axial parts of the spikes and spikelets covered with 
intensely rusty tomentum; by the spathels finely tomentose outside, cuneate- 
oblong, more than twice as long as broad, terminated by a short triangular point ; 
by the female spikelets bearing few flowers, and these on short pedicels, and 
provided with small bracteoles; by the female flowers having the petals much 
larger than the divisions of the calyx; and by the fruit globular, slightly conically- 
beaked and densely villous from scales with erisp tips. 
T. Anderson in his Enumeration of the Palms of Sikkim (Journ. of the Linn. 
Soc. xi, 1869, p. 12) asserts that P. assamica and P. khasyana are identical (see 
my observations to P. khasyana). 
