86 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. Z. glabrescens. 
From a plant cultivated at Buitenzorg (Herb. Becc.). Young fruits; from Meebold’s 
No. 14619. One mature fruit, from Amherst (Brandis). 
1. ZALACCA GLABRESCENS. Griff. in Cale. Journ. Nat. Hist. v, 14: Palms 
Brit. Ind. 17, t.' 179; Hook. f. FI. Brit. Ind. vi, 473; Ridley, 
Mat. Fl. Mal. Penins. ii, 170. 
Description.—Stemless as usual, but apparently a smaller plant than the allied 
species. Leaves 2-3 m. long (at times more?) ; the petiole, 1°25 m. long in one 
specimen, is in its lower part obtusely trigonous and armed with a few interrupted 
rows of confluent, robust straight spines, 4-5 cm. long; upwards it is terete and 
with the spines solitary, scattered and very unequal above and along the centre 
beneath ; the rhachis in its first portion is more or less armed on the dorsum 
with a line of straight, rigid, horizontal or ascendent spines, and has a deep 
furrow on each side of the median ridge above ; upwards it is trigonous. The 
leaves of young plants have the petioles (when dry) trigonous, and the leaflets 
equidistant from the middle above; in full grown plants the leaflets are all 
on one plane, very plainly interrupted, two or three being approximated on each 
side of the rhachis, with long vacant spaces between the groups, at least from 
the middle downwards ; are thinly papyraceous green and almost glossy on both 
surfaces, distinctly sigmoid-lanceolate, broadest about their middle, and thence 
tapering downwards to a rather acute base, and narrowing upwards to a falcate, 
subulate, filiferous or cirriform apex ; have 3 slender costae, acute and smooth ; 
transverse veinlets not very approximate (92-3 mm: apart); margins spinulous, 
ciliate only near the apex: the intermediate leaflets are 30—35 em. long, and 
5-65 em. wide; the lowest are somewhat longer, but only 3-4 cm. wide; the 
uppermost are confluent and form a bilobed flabellum, the lobes being deeply 4-5 
cleft. Male spadix branched from the base, forming a panicle 25—40 cm. long ; 
primary spathes very short, subcoriaceous, thinly rusty tomentose ; spathes of the 
branches 7—10 em. long, rigid. tubular and narrow in their basal part, unclosed on 
the ventral side and broadening above into a lanceolate, acuminate, papyraceous, 
fugaciously furfuraceous limb ; the lower branches bear 3—5 spikes, the upper ones 
only one or two; the spikes are supported by a pedicellar rusty furfuraceous 
part which is itself provided with a secondary rather large, loosely infundibuliform 
spathe, prolonged into a lanceolate limb. The spikes are entirely exserted from the 
spathes, 4-9 cm. long ; when young are vermiform and glabrous, looking as if they 
were regularly formed by superposed rings, one into the other, later have a 
subsquarrose appearance, and when covered with full grown flowers are 13 mm. in 
diameter ; spathels united by their bases, forming the rings spoken of above and having 
the rim undulate and very obsoletely toothed, each tooth corresponding to a bract ; 
special flower-bracteoles slender, shorter than the spathels and slightly hairy- 
paleaceous. Male flowers small, 5-6 mm. long, produced beyond the spathels only 
during the anthesis with the spread out lobes of the corolla ; the calyx splits into 3 
linear hyaline segments, as long as the lower fleshy entire part of the corolla, which 
is divided, in its upper third into 3 oblong segments ; rudimentary ovary basal, very 
small but distinct; stamens equal, their: filaments subulate from à thickish 
base; anthers oblong. Female spadix consisting of only a few branches, 15—30 
