MYRIALEPIS. 63 
MYRIALEPIS Becc. 
Becc. in Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. vi, 480. 
A large, scandent, dicecious, monocarpic Palm. Inflorescence terminal, composed 
of several branches, each of which proceeds from the leaf-sheath of a reduced leaf. 
Leaves of the adult plant cirriferous, having the leaf-sheaths non-gibbous above, 
gradually passing into the petiole, and without ocrea or ligula at their mouths. 
Leafle's straight, acuminate, unicostulate with several secondary nerves, and besprinkled 
with microlepidia on the under surface ;. the margins slightly thickened. Male 
inflorescence large, several times branched; all the branches provided with tightly 
sheathing spathes. » Male spikelets short, scorpioid, furnished with spathellulas and 
involucra as in Calamus. Male flowers . . . Female spadix very different 
from the male, and less divided. ‘Spikelet- TRAE branches provided with short 
infundibuliform spathes ; spikelets very few-flowered, inserted just at the mouth of 
their respective spathes. Female flowers are solitary at each spathel, provided with 
only one cupular involucre unaccompanied by a neutral flower and globular- 
ovoid during the anthesis; the calyx deeply 3-lobed; the corolla deeply 93-parted ; 
the stamens forming with the broadened bases of the filaments a nearly entirely 
free membranous cup, with 6 radiating anther-bearing teeth; the anthers sterile, 
sagittate. Ovary globose, 3-locular, covered with very minute rudimentary scales ; 
the cells uniovylate ; ovule anatropous, basilar; stigmas -short and thick, trigonous, 
at first connivent, later divaricate. Fruit globose, having the pericarp fragile and 
covered with innumerable irregularly set, extremely minute scales. Seed solitary, 
globose, having. a scanty integument and an even surface; chalazal fovea punctiform, 
apical; embryo basal; albumen equable. 
The genus Myrialepis is especially characterized by the male spadix being 
larger and considerably more branched than the female; by the female flowers 
being solitary at each spathel, furnished with only one involucre and not accom- 
panied by a neuter flower; otherwise on the; whole the female flower of Myrialepis 
is very much like that of Plectocomiopsis; but above all it is characterized by the 
fruit being clothed with extremely minute, not regularly or seriately set, almost 
tuberculiform scales. (In my monograph of Calamus vol. XL, p. 29 of these Annals) 
I have made mention of Myrialepis in regard to the nature of the scales that cover 
the pericarp). 
Myrialepis is certainly allied under several aspects to Plectocomiopsis, but the 
female flowers in the two genera are widely different. Moreover in Plectocomiopsis 
the scales clothing the truit although very numerous, are nevertheless regularly 
arranged in orthostichies and parastichies, whereas in Myrialepis no order exists 
and it would be vain to attempt to count them. Only one species of ' Mwrialepis 
is with certainty known. I have, however, already remarked that Plectocomiopsis 
paradoxus and P. floribundus may possibly be referable to Myrialepis ; but the male 
flowers of Myrialepis are not known and of the two other species mentioned the 
female flowers and fruit are wanting; such a circumstance renders a rigorous 
comparison between them impossible. 
