M. saqus. METROXYLON. 165 
L] 
obovoid-oblong, slightly narrowing above, but obtuse at apex; the calyx tapers 
below to a marrow base, is 3-lobed, the lobes broad rounded at apex, and finely 
striately-veined externally; in the female flower the calyx later splits into 3 parts ; 
on the whole both kinds of flowers are very much like those of M. Rumphit, but 
have, perhaps, the calyx less deeply 3-lobed, and more distinctly striately-veined. 
The fruit is globular, slightly depressed, looks’ like a small wild apple, is always 
somewhat broader than high, 4 em. in diameter, and 30—34 mm. high, has the 
upper and lower face equally and slightly concave, but the lower umbilicate and 
the upper acutely mucronate; the pericarp is of an average thickness of 6 mm, 
in the fresh fruit, having the mesocarp spongy and succulent, but reduced uniformly 
all round, even at the base, to 3 mm. in the dry state; the endocarp is very 
thinly membranous; on the walls of the smooth endocarpal cavity are plainly 
visible the traces of the 3 rudimentary dissepiments and exactly at the bottom of 
the cavity are the remains of two abortive ovules, as always only one ovule is 
developed into seed. The seed completely, fills the cavity, and has the form of the 
entire fruit, is globular-lepressed, and when fresh is 28—30 mm. in diameter; it 1s 
attached to the bottom of the cavity by means of a eircular hilum of the diameter 
of about 6 mm.; in the fresh fruit the seed is enveloped in a thick fleshy integu- 
mentum, adherent to the nucleus, and having the outer surface shiny and slightly 
marked by the impression of the irregularity of the internal cavity of the pericarp ; 
the integument penetrates into a large orbicular cavity corresponding to the 
chalaza in the upper part of the nucleus. In the dry fruit the integument is 
thickly crustaceous and brittle; the nucleus is entirely formed by the albumen 
90—94 mm. in diameter, has the chalazal cavity 7—8 mm. in diameter, and is 
rounded below; the albumen is white, bony, and in a vertical section through the 
embryo is horse-shoe shaped, with the sides 6—7 mm. thick; the embryo is basal, 
at times slightly remote from the hilum, and traverses almost the entire base of 
the albumen. The scales are in 18 vertical series, rhomboidal, the mesials 12 mm. 
broad. shiny and straw-coloured when dry, slightly darker near the margins, some- 
what convex, deeply grooved along the centre; the apices triangular, slightly 
produced, bluntish or subacute; the margins very narrowly discoloured or scarious 
and finely erosely-toothed. 
In some fruits (received from the Botanie Garden of Buitenzorg) the seed is 
completely perforated by the intrusion of ihe integument, or in other words the 
orbicular upper chalazal cavity is connected with the lower surface of the seed, in 
proximity to the embryo, by a channel filled with the same substance as exists 
in the upper cavity, exactly as occurs in the seed of the species of Thrinax of 
the sectio Porothrinax. Further I have observed in. certain seeds some slight, 
peripherieal intrusion of the integument into the substance of the albumen. denot- 
ing a commencement of rumination. | ì 
Harrar.—It is cultivated like M. Rumphii, and in some countries even more 
than that species, especially in the entire group of the Moluceas and in Borneo. 
In Borneo it is very extensively cultivated in Sarawak at the mouths of the 
Rivers Oja, Muka, Bintulu, Kalaka, etc. I have seen specimens of it from Sumatra 
(Padang— Beccari) from Java, from the Malay Peninsula, and from the Philippines 
; LÍ 
