K. merrillù. KORTHALSIA. 129 
spines, 4—6 mm. long. Ocreae tubular,- closely sheathing, 4—5 cm. long, armed 
with the same kind of spines as the sheaths, membranous and truncate at their 
mouths, later disintegrated more or less into filaments. Leaves of the intermediate 
part of the adult plant 35—45 cm. long in the pinniferous part, bearing few (10 
in all) alternate leaflets, and ending in a very slender, rather long, very minutely 
clawed cirrus. The leaves nearer to the inflorescence considerably smaller. Petiole 
very short. Rhachis irregularly and relatively powerfully clawed. Leaflets green on 
both surfaces, only slightly paler beneath, but devoid of any kind of pulverulent 
or t us indumentum, very variable in size and shape; some are cuneate- 
aboiðdal and rather elongate in their lower part; others are exactly rhomboidal, 
about as long as broad; generally they have the anterior margins irregularly and 
not deeply toothed, some of the teeth being very acute and even subaristate ; the 
apex is acute or acuminate, but not produced or caudiculate; the main nerves are 
7—9, all slender; transverse veinlets not very sharp. Some of the largest leaflets 
measure 16—18 em. by 7—8 cm., others 12—13 cm. by 8—10 cm.; the two lowest 
leaflets are the smallest in the few leaves examined ; the ansae are strongly flat- 
tened and 5—10 mm. long. The leaves on the upper part of the flowering stem 
gradually diminish in length and have the leaflets smaller, broader, more exactly 
and symmetrically rhomboidal, and about as long as wide, measuring from 5 to 7 
cm. equally in the two directions. The uppermost leaves, immediately below the 
inflorescence are, as usual, still more reduced. The inflorescence is small, composed 
of very fəw branches (two in the specimen seen by me), about 30 cm. long, bearing 
alternately 2 spikes on each side, and a terminal one. The spathes are tubular, 
unarmed, closely sheathing, brown, truncate and more or less split and lobed at 
their. mouths, finely-striate, slightly and fugaciously puberulous-furfuraceous. Spikes 
inserted at the bottom of their respective spathes by means of a slender pedicellar 
part, itself provided with infundibular spathes; during the anthesis the spikes are 
flexuous, obtuse, 8—10 cm. long, and including the flowers 10—11 mm. in diameter ; 
the flowers are half immersed in the dense fulvous wool with which their ee 
are covered ; the spathels are broadly triangular, blunt or subacute, often connate, 
thinly membranous, reddish-brown, striately-veined, not visible outside the wool of 
the bracteoles. Flowers small, 4 mm. long, 15 mm. broad, blunt ; the calyx cyathi- 
form-campanulgte, broadly but not deeply 3-lobed, the lobes bluntish ; its mouth 
remains on a level with the wool of the. bracteoles, strongly striatély-veined ; the 
corolla is about twice as long as the calyx, and is divided nearly to the base into 
3 oblong, striate segments; the stamens have very short filaments ; anthers linear, 
elongate, acute; ovary small, globose; style conical, reaching about to the middle 
of the anthers; stigmas acute.. Fruit unknown. 
HaBrrar.—The Philippines: Malampaya Bay in the Island of Palawan at sea 
level. Discovered by £Z. D. Merrill in May. 1913 (No. 9410 in Herbaria of the 
Bureau of Science, Manila and Beccari). 
OBsERVATIONS.—A slender species, in some respects related to X. tenuissima. It 
is, however, quite distinet among those provided with closely sheathing and spinous 
ocreae by its leaves haying leaflets green on both surface, those of the leaves of 
the upper part of the plant being rhomboidal with symmetrical sides. and ‘about 
A 
ANN. Roy. Bor. GARD., CALCUTTA VoL. XII. 
