50 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. [D. aruensis. 
DAEMONOROPS MELANOCHAETES var, DEPRESSE-GLOBOsUS Teijsm. et Binn. Cat. Hort. 
Bogor. (1866), 74; Becc. in Rec. Bot. Surv. Ind. H, 219. |: 
I have not seen specimens of this. variety. 
HaBrríAT.—Java or Sumatra ? 
4.  DAEMONOROPS ARUENSIS Becc. 
Description.—Scandent.  Sheathed stem 9:5 cm. in diameter.  Leaf-sheaths of the 
upper part of the plant gibbous above, covered with an almost black, removable, 
erustaceous scurf, and armed with laminar, often  seriate, blackish spines. Leaves 
elongate ; petiole 15 cm. long, flattish, and with the central part smooth above, its 
margins prickly, convex beneath, where armed with rather numerous, unequal, 
straight spines; on the upper surface the rachis is, at first, spinulous at the sides 
and convex-bifacial upwards, with the salient angle acute, smooth or very remotely 
spinulous; underneath clawed as in allied species. Leaflets ^ very numerous, equi- 
distant, rather approximate, papyraceous, linear-ensiform, from about 5-6 em, above 
their base gradually acuminate to a finely subulate tip; the intermediate ones about 
‘30 em. long and 15 mm. broad; the mid-costa and one slender costula on each side of it 
furnished on the upper surface with blackish bristles; on the lower the mid-costa alone 
sparingly, minutely and interruptedly bristly from the middle upwards, margins closely and 
appressedly spinulous. Male spadiz . . . . Female spadix in fruit erect, ¿0—25 cm. 
long without the spathes; outer spathes (seen only in a decayed condition) armed 
with blackish, filiform spiculae; the pedicellar part of the spadix short and spinu- 
lous; involucrophorum pedicelliform, angular, distinctly callous at its axilla; involucre very 
shallowly cupular ; areola of the neuter flower somewhat depressed, with its upper margin 
strongly swollen. Fruiting perianth explanate, with a very slightly callous base. 
Fruit spherical, very shortly conically beaked, 16-18 mm. in diameter, sometimes very 
slightly depressed; scales in 18 series, rather glossy, not very deeply channelled 
along the centre, reddish-brown, with a darker, rather broad marginant line, tip 
slightly prolonged, margins erosely toothed. Seed sub-globular, broader than long, in 
one specimen 14 mm. in one transverse diameter, 10:5 mm. in the other, 12 mm. 
high, almost equally biconvex and not distinctly ventricose on tbe raphal side. 
Hasrrar.—Collected first by H. N. Moseley in the Aru Islands during tlie 
voyage of the “Challenger” in 1874 (Herb. Kew.) and afterwards by Warburg 
in the same Islands (Herb. Berol.). 
: Osservations.—It differs very little from D. melanochactes, of which at first I 
had considered it a variety, but the seed is somewhat depressed, almost equally 
biconvex and not distinctly gibbous on one side; moreover the fruit is slightly 
smaller and more distinctly beaked, and the leaf-sheaths are armed with more 
distinctly seriate spines than in D. melanochaetes. The seed strongly gibbous on the 
raphal side is the best character for distinguishing VD.  melanochaeies from severa] 
allied forms, a character which seems constant in all its varieties. On this 
account I have thought it wise not to amalgamate with D. melanochaetes a form having an 
almost equally biconvex seed. . 
