M. bougainvillense] METROXYLON. 193 
rather broadly grooved along the centre in the posticous part, and more narrowly 
anticously. Seed globular, somewhat depressed, 4°5—5 cm. high, 5:5—5'7 em. broad: 
obsoletely sulcate longitudinally ; the chalazal cavity deep and orbicular inside, but 
the mouth somewhat narrowed ; the embryo is placed in a deep pit-like basal cavity ; 
the albumen is crescent shaped in vertical section, its sides 2 cm. thick in their 
broadest part; the embryo is large, 6 mm. in diameier at the base and about 1 
em. long. Other parts unknown. 
Hasrrat.—The Solomon Islands. Guppy writes of it that it grows in St. Chris- 
torval in dry situations, and that in Fauro and Treasury Islands groves of ib occur 
both on the lower slopes and in the higher districts, on the summit of Treasury, at 
a height of about 300 m., and in Fauro at 450 m. It furnishes not only a com- 
mercial kind of vegetable ivory-nut, but supplies the natives with the Sago flour, 
whieh is an important item of their dietary, while the leaves are used for the 
roofs and walls of their houses. Regarding this palm Guppy writes also: “I often 
used to admire its heavy bole, terminating above in its handsome crown of massive 
branches. Although this palm when full grown has the appearance of great age 
and durability, it does not live more than 20 years, when it flowers, bears and: 
dies. Native names ‘Bia’ and 'Nami'." 
To M. salomonense, as described and figured by Warburg, exactly corresponds 
one fruit colleeted by Rechinger in the year 1905 near Friedrieh Wilhelm's Hafen 
in German New Guinea (this is the fruit figured in Rechingers work and by me 
in Plate 114). A fruit quite identieal with the preceding is one bearing the No. 123 
in the Berlin Herbarium, collected by Missionary Peekel at  Namatanai near 
Herbertshóhe, in Neu-Pommern (New Britain). 
OnsERvATIONS.— This species is characterized by the apple-like fruit, not excavate 
at the base, and having its rather lengthy scales produced into a discoloured apex, 
and by the seed having the chalazal cavity which deeply penetrates the albumen, 
orbieular, and with a restricted opening. 
PraArE 114.—Metroxylon salomonense Bece. (The four figures in the upper part of 
the plate.)— Upper, lower and side views of the fruit collected by Rechinger in 
New Guinea; the same fruit in transverse section, having, however, the seed entire 
and in situ. See also the vertical section of the seed in the anatytical plate VI, 
f. 16, under the erroneous name of M. su moense. 
È 9. METROXYLON BOUGAINVILLENSE Bece. in  Denksehriften der «K. Akad, 
Wissensch Math. Naturw. Klasse, Wien lxxxix (1913), 60, f. 5e, 61 f. 5g, 5h, 57 
and 62. 
* DzrscRiPTION.— Probably very similar in habit to M. salomonense, but with smaller 
fruits. One leaflet, apparently from a full grown plant, is elongate-lanceolate, 95 cm. 
in length, 10 em. broad in its broadest part (about the middle), and thence gradually 
narrowing downwards to a rather acute base, and upwards to a very gradually 
acuminate apex; it is papyraceous, almost equally green on both surfaces, glossy 
above; the mid-costa is on the upper surface very strong, prominent and spinulous- 
serrulate from the middle upwards; underneath it is smooth and superficial; 
ANN. Roy. Bot. GARD., CALCUTTA, VOL. XII. 
