M. rumphii] METROXYLON. ij 169 
2: Massi tLon RumpHit Mart. Hist. Nat. Palm. iii, 214 (2nd edit.) and 313 
t. 102. 159; Mig. Fl. Ind. Bat. 140; Bece. in Nuovo Giorn. bot. Ital. ni, 30: 
Malesia i, 91; Hook. F. Fl. Brit. Ind. vi, 481. 
Sagus Rumphii Willd. Sp.Pl. iv, 404. 
Sagus genuina Rumph. Herb. Amb. i, E $47 18 (exel. Sagou duri rottang) ; 
Blume, Rumphia ii, 150. 
Sagus spinosus (Lapia tuni or genuine Sago-tree of Rumphius) Roxb. Fl. 
Ind. ii. 623 excl. syn. 
Description.—(Forma typica) Gregarious and sending forth many basal offshoots. 
The trunk in young vigorous plants is entirely clothed with leaves, the base of : 
which is much enlarged, sheathing and spinous; the petiole is also armed with 
long spines. The full grown plants, approaching the emission of the inflorescence, 
have a stout columnar straight trunk, about .60 cm. in diameter, attaining 8—10 
m. in height, irregularly ringed with the scars of fallen leaves, the bases of 
which remain long attached to the trunk, which otherwise is quite smooth. 
The trunk has a narrow outer hard woody-fibrous zone, and internally is spongy 
and succulent and mainly formed of cells filled with starch. © Leaves about 7 m. 
long, imbrieately inserted and ascendent, the lower oldest reflexed ; the very 
large embracing bases of the leaves are glaucous—green 1—1.Lm. long, and 
about 45 cm. wide at tne base, are firmly coriaceous, deeply and broadly concave 
inside, convex externally, have thin margins soon withered, and are armed 
externally with several transverse pectinate series of unequal, flattened spines 3—4 
em. long or less, confluent by their bases; the petiolar part is about as long as 
the sheath and much longer in leaves of young and robust plants; it is 15 cm. 
thick, broadly channelled above, rounded beneath, polished externally of a soft and 
pithy structure inside and hard at the periphery, armed all along the dorsum, but 
especially in its lower portion with small series or fascicles of digitate unequally 
flattened or needle-like spines, some of which attain 7—8 em. in length, and 
are still longer in leaves of young plants. Rhachis rounded below and similarly 
armed as the petiole, especially along the centre, but with the spines becoming i 
gradually less numerous and feebler towards the apex; the intermediate portion of the 
rhachis is bifaced above and has the salient angle smooth, and not very sharp. 
Leaflets inserted transversely at an angle of 45°. numerous and equidistant, the ‘ 
mesial being 6—7 cm. apart on each side, are rigid-papyraceous, green and shiny 
on both surfaces, very faintly paler beneath, straight, broadly linear-ensiform, 
somewhat narrowing, and having reduplicate margins at the base, gradually long- 
acuminate towards the apex, which ‘in the lower and intermediate leaflets is 
lengthened out to a filiform caudiculum, several centimeters long, becoming obsolete, 
in the upper leaflets; the margins are acute (not thickened by a marginal nerve) 
and furnished with small spinules distant at the base but becoming closer and 
stronger and more spreading towards the apex; the mid-costa is very robust, 
prominent and acute on the upper surface, where it is more or less spinulous 
only near the apex; underneath it is slender, and furnished, especially near the 
base, with a line, at times continuous, of brown ramentaceous scales, apparently 
deeiduous by age; otherwise the lower surface is quite smooth. glabrous, and without 
ANN. Roy. Bot. GARD., CALCUTTA, VOL. XII. 
