156 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. 
j i Metroxylon Rottb. 
Rottb. in Nye Sam. Dansk. Videns. Selsk. Skrift. i 525, t. 1; Mart. Hist. 
Nat. Palm. iii, 213, 343 (excl. Sect. Pigafetta) t. 102, 159; Kunth Enum. Pl. ii, 
213 (excl. sp.); Griff. Palm. Brit. Ind. 21, t. 181; Miquel Fl. Ind. Bat. iii, 139 
(excl. Sect. 2); Becc. Malesia, i, 91 and in Nuovo Giorn. Bot. Ital. m, 29; 
Benth. et Hook. Gen. PI. iii, 935; Hook. f. in Fl. Brit. Ind. vi, 481; Drude in 
Engl. et Prantt, Pflanzenf. 1, 47 (with Coelococcus as a Subgenus). 
Sagus Dl. Rumphia, il, 146 (excl. Sect.) ti. 86, 126, 127; Turpin Dict. Sc. Nat. 
(Botanique) t. 32, 33. 
Coelococcus H. Wendl. in Bonpl. 1862, 199; "Warburg in Bericht Deut. Bot. 
Gesell. xiv (1896), 140 t. X; Heim. in Bull. Agr. CoL. Soc. Frane: de Colonies 
(extract) 1902, f. 1—5. 
Arborescent, moncecious, more or less spinous palms, having a columnar trunk, and 
large pinnate leaves. Leaves having a large broadened basilar part, clasping but not 
completely sheathing the trunk, spinous or smooth; petiole robust, channeled above 
spinous or smooth. Leaflets numerous, ensiform, straight, acuminate, having a mid-costa 
prominent spinulous or nearly smooth on the upper surface, and several secondary 
nerves ; the margins acute, spinulous or nearly smooth. Inflorescence very large, terminal, 
arising from the centre of the leaf crown, usually composed of several main branches 
issuing from the axillas of the uppermost much reduced leaves; the primary branches 
are sheathed by spathes, tubular in their lower part, unclosed above; the secondary 
branches bear, alternately and distichally, the spikes, and are also provided with 
tubular spathes. Spikes amentiform, cylindrical, bearing moncecious flowers in pairs, 
spirally arranged in the axillas of broad membranous very approximate bracts or 
spathels, which are more or less connate; every pair of flowers is provided with 
its special bracteoles, usually densely villose or reduced to tufts of hairs. The 
flowers of every pair are collateral, and externally quite the same; one of each 
pair is, however, male and the other hermaphrodite in appearance, but physiologically 
only female; both kinds of flowers are symmetrical and thinly coriaceous, have the 
calyx eyathiform campanulate, and more or less deeply 3-lobed ; the corolla longer 
than the calyx, and more or less deeply parted into 3 valvate segments, but always 
undivided and campanulate or urceolate in its basal part. The male flowers open 
before the female and have the filaments connate and adnate to the” undivided 
part of the corolla, the free part of the filaments is elongate and briefly inflected 
at apex; anthers elongate, dorsifixed, versatile, with parallel cells opening longitudi- 
nally and laterally ; rudimentary ovary very small, represented by 3 very. small 
papilliform bodies. Female or pseudo-hermaphrodite flowers opening after the fall of 
all the male ones; calyx corolla and stamens are exactly as in the male flowers ; 
ovary ovoid or turbinate, narrowing above into a thick acuminate style, vullesalor, 
but showing on the walls of the cell the rudiments of the dissepiments of three 
cells ; stigmas small, acute, connivent ; ovules 3, basilar, erect, anatropous. Fruit 
globose or turbinate, covered with imbricating scales; mesocarp suberose or spongy ; 
endocarp very thin pellieular. Seed solitary, globose, erect in the cavity; has the 
hilum basal, orbieular or elliptical; is enveloped with an integument more or less 
developed and at times abundant and fleshy, penetrating deeply above in correspondence 
