194 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. [ M. bougainvillense 
secondary nerves 4—5 on each side of the mid-costa, not much stronger than the 
numerous tertiary ones; transverse veinlets very slender and approximate, more 
distinct above than underneath; margins acute, very minutely ciliate-spinulous. 
Some fragments of leaflets presumed to belong to this species, which apparently 
had been used for thatching or for the walls of a house, are extraordinarily 
large, being 19 em. wide at their middle, and probably attaining the length of. 
about 2 m. These leaflets of such a large size were probably’ from young 
and very vigorous plants. The only fruit seen by me is  globular-depressed 
pomiform, conspicuously depressed-umbilicate above. somewhat exdavate at the base 
3:5—4 cm. high, 5'5 cm. broad ; scales in 27 vertical series, the largest 9—10 mm. 
broad in the exposed part, somewhat produced into a triangular acuminate apex, 
glossy, straw-coloured, having a faint narrow darker intramargina! line and the 
margins and tips discoloured or grayish; also they are rather broadly grooved along 
the centre in the postieous part, and narrowly anticously. The pericarp is 10— 
19 mm. thick; mad the seed is 2°5 cm. in diameter. 
* 
Hazitat.—The leaflet and the fruit representing the tyje of this. species were 
scollected by Dr. Rechinger, in 1905, at Taberoi in Bougainville Island, and bear the 
No. 4878 in the Vienna Herbarium. The large fragmentary leaflets supposed to 
belong to the same species as No. 4878, bear the locality “ Insel, Bougainville, 
.Bueht von Kieta." 
OssERvATIONS.— Very similar to M. salomonense, and perhaps only a variety of it. 
from which, however, it differs in its smaller. more depressed fruit with the base 
excavate, and the mesocarp considerably thicker, and in having a smaller seed. 
The greyish colour of the margins of the scales in M. bougainvillense and 
M. salomonense is apparently due to a thin coating of a siliceous secretion, which 
flakes off in thin hyaline plates or lamellae. 
Plate 114.—Metroxylon bougainvillense Becc. (The 4 figures in the lower part of 
the plate). Upper, lower and side view of a fruit collected by Rechinger in Bougain- 
ville Island ; the same fruit in transverse section,’ with the seed (not thoroughly 
mature) entire and in situ. A vertical section of this seed is represented in fig. 
17 in analytical plate VI. i 
` EXCLUDED SPECIES. 
. Metroxylon oxybracteatum Warb. ss ined. ex K. Schum. et _Lauterb. FI. 
Deut. Schutz. Geb. (1901) p. 202. 
I have seen the authentic specimen, of this in the Berlin Hebarium where it 
is represented by only a spike, which apparently, is not that of a nie nor 
of any other Palm. 
Metroxylon textile Welw. Apont. (1858) 554—Raphia textilis Welw. + 
Metroxylon Ruffia Spreng. Syst. Veget. ii, 139.—Raphia Ruttia ' Mart. 
Metroxylon viniferum Spreng. Syst. Veget. ii, 139 No. 2.—haphia vinifera Palis de 
uv. 
UN 
