166 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. M. saqus. 
(Loher in Kew Herbarium). I have not met with it in Dutch New-Guinea. It is 
also cultivated in Malacca ( Griff.) 
OssERVATIONS.—The species is easily distinguishable from M. Rumphii by its 
non-spinous leaves and spathes; the secondary spathes or spathes of the spike- 
bearing branches are also smooth and not covered with small spines, as is the case 
in M. Rumphi. The most characteristic forms of M. Sagus are also distinguish- 
able from M. Rumphit by their fruits globular depressed or broader than high; 
the spikes also are more slender, have a less tomentose appearance, for the spathels 
project more than in M. Rumphii above the villosity of the flower bracteoles ; the 
flowers have the calyx less deaply 3-lobed, and more distinctly striately-veined. 
On the whole, however, it is a species very closely related to M. Rumphé, and I 
am not sure that all the differences I have mentioned are always to be considered 
as reliable diagnostic characters, the absence of spines on leaves and spathes 
excepted; even the spinescence is probably a character of little diagnostic value, 
as it often happens in other Palms, in Calamus for instance, that some specimens 
identical in all the reproluctive organs, have the leaf-sheaths sometimes densely 
covered with spines and at other times smooth; further Metroxylon squarrosum 
oceurs with both spinescent and smooth leaves, all the other characters being the 
same. | 
M. Sagus yields the flour or Farina of Sago, and the well-known granulated 
starch exactly as M. Rumphu, and like that affords numerous other commodities to 
the natives. | 
M. Sagus certainly corresponds to Sagus levis of Rumph, of which he writes 
that it receives in Amboina the name of “ Lapia molat”, and that it produces an 
excellent kind of flour. with which the Amboinese make their much esteemed 
dense gruel named ^" Papeda" and a kind of bread; biscuits of general use are 
also made by cooking the flour in small heated stone moulds. 
It is the “ Rambia” of the Malays of Java and Sumatra. “ Kirai” is its Javanese 
name; and it is known now in Amboina as the “Sagu perampuan” (the female 
Sagu) or the “Sagu papeda” (the Gruel Sagu). 
Prate 104.—Metroxylon Sagus Zottb.—Spike-bearing branch with mature fruits ; 
fruits entire, and in vertical section. In the lower part of the plate one figure 
shows a vertical section of a seel normally evolute; in another figure, the embryo 
traverses the entire albumen, and with its apex attains the internal cavity; in a 
third the seed appears completely traversed by the integument, and shows also 
traces of rumination. Intermediate’ segment from a full grown plant. Specimen 
from a plant cultivated at Buitenzorg (Herb. Becc.). 
PrarE 106.—Metroxylon Sagus Rottb. (The group of figures in the lower part, 
and on the left side of the plate only).—Fruits collected by me at Padang in Sumatra, 
One is transversely cut, leaving entire the seed, which shows its lower part with the 
hilum, and the relies of the two abortive ovules; another figure represents the 
bottom of thé endocarpal cavity of the - preceding figure, and shows the insertion 
of the seed, the traces of the abortive ovules, and of the absorbed dissepiments, 
The two halves of one seed, cut vertically through the embryo. From specimens 
in alcohol. |. 
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