100 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. P. filaris. 
PiGAFETTA FILARIS Becc. Malesia, i, 89 (Pigafettia.). 
Metroxylon filare Mart. Hist. Nat. Palm. ili, 216 and 343; Mig. FI. Ind. Bat. 
in, 149. | 
Sagus filaris Bl. Rumphia. ii, 154 and 128. 
Metroxylon elatum Mart. l. c. 216. 
Sagus elata Reinw. ex Mart. l. c.; Blume, Rumphia, ii, 156 t. 128, fig. 1. 
Sagus microcarpa Zipp. in Bijdr. Nat. Wet. xv, 178. (ex Miq.) 
Metroxylon microcarpum Mart. l. c. 216; Kunth, Enum. Plant iii, 215. 
Sagus microsperma Zipp. l. c. | | 
Metroxylon microspermum Mart. l. c. ; Kunth, l. c. 
Pigafettia papuana Becc. Malesia i, 89. 
Sagus filaris Rumph, Herb. Amb i, 84, t. 19. 
Calamus Kunzeanus Becc. in Ann. Roy. Bot. Gard. Calcutta, xi, 492, pl. 226 
IV, f. 14-19 and Suppl. I, III and in Webbia iii, 244. 
Description.—A very fine dioecious palm, up to 30 m. high. Stem solitary 
(non-soboliferous), straight, cylindrical, marked by the approximate scars of the 
fallen leaves; the wood very hard. Leaves very large, about 6 m. long, 
spreading, the old leaves reflexed and deciduous; leaf-sheaths short, embracing, fur- 
nished with narrow membranous, transverse, interrupted crests, bearing numerous 
pectinately set spinescent bristles; petiole very stout and also armed with comb-like 
series of spinescent bristles ; the rhachis is broadly channelled on the upper 
surface of its lower portion, has an obtuse prominent angle above and is more or 
less furnished underneath and throughout with bristly spines. Leaflets very numer- 
ous, very regularly equidistant and very regularly bifarious in one plane, straight, 
broadly linear-ensiform, long-acuminate, attached to the rhachis by a rather broad 
base with reduplicate margins ; they are rigidly papyraceous or thinly coriaceous, 
green on both surfaces, but slightly paler on lower, not very conspicuously 3- cos- 
tulate, having the mid-costa very robust and prominent, slightly spinulous, but 
only towards the upper end, and only on the upper surface, obtuse and completely 
devoid of scales or spinules underneath ; the side-costae slender, completely smooth, 
or in the leaves of young plants slightly spinulous ; the intermediate leaflets of 
full grown plants 1°2-15 m. long, 5-65 cm. wide; those above become gradu- 
ally smaller, more acuminate, and more distant, till the uppermost are only 30—40 
em. long; the lowest are narrower, more approximate, and distinctly callous at 
their axillas. Spadices axillary, several flowering at the same time, furnished 
with several incomplete, coriaceous, sheathing spathes, of which the outermost are 
shorter than the inner, flattened and truncated at their months, the innermost 
gradually extended beyond those below. Male and female spadices are similar as 
regards their branching, but appear different from the different aspect of the spikes; 
are considerably shorter than the leaves, 1'6—2 m. long, and form large, flaccid, 
dependent panicles, divided into several, elongate, tail-like partial inflorescences. 
or Spike bearing branchlets; the latter are 60—70 cm. long, each furnished at 
the base with a coriaceous spathe, shaped like an ass's ear, tubular in its lower 
