68 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. (D. Binnendijkit. 
spinules are confined to the acute, salient angle, and disappear towards the apex; 
on the lower surface it is armed in the usual way with claws, solitary below, 
3-5-nate upwards, and half-whorled on the cirrus. Leaflets very numerous, very 
regularly equidistant, inserted at an angle of about 45°, 12-16 mm. apart, 
thinly papyraceous, green on both surfaces, slightly paler on the lower, linear 
or linear-sublanceolate, 20-30 cm. long, 10-13 mm. broad, somewhat narrowed 
towards a not very acute base and gradually acuminate from about the middle, 
or even below, to a capillary tip; the mid-costa and a rather distinct nerve on 
each side of it are furnished with rather long, brown bristles on the upper 
surface; on the lower the mid-costa only is finely aud closely ciliate; transverse 
veinlets slender, but distinct and much interrupted; margins closely and appressedly 
bristly-spinulous. Male spadiz . . . . Female spadiz before flowering rather 
broadly ventricose-fusiform, rather suddenly narrowing into a beak as long as the 
body, erect, sessile or almost so, its base densely armed with flat, reversed spines, 
25 em. long in three specimens (but perhaps sometimes larger) including the beak ; 
outer spathe deeply cymbiform, distinctly two-keeled only at the base, thinly coria- 
ceous, armed with numerous, thinly laminar, very finely and long acuminate, elastic, 
scattered, very unequal, reversed spines; of these some are laciniate, up to 4-5 
mm. broad at the base, and 3-3°5 cm. long, and others almost setiform; those at 
the base of the beak are amongst the longest, but are slender and spreading ; 
the second and following spathes unarmed; axial parts of the spadix glabrous; 
partial inflorescences 5-6, composed of only 6-7 spikelets; the larger spikelets 
(the lowest) about 3-5 cm. long with 3-5 flowers on each side, and with the 
spaces between two flowers acutely angular, 2-4 mm. long; spathels bracteiform, 
amplectent, extended at one side into a broadly triangular, acute limb; involucrophorum 
protruding a good deal beyond the spathels, obconical, angular, not distinctly callous 
at its axilla and expanded at its apex into an oblique shallowly  subeupular 
limb, which at one of its sides subtends the erect neuter flower; involucre 
raised above the involucrophorum by a rather thick base, its limb shallowly 
cupular, truncate, entire ; areola of the neuter flower flat, with a basal scar and 
without the usual semicircular swollen border on its upper margin. Female flowers 
broadly ovate, 5 mm. long; the calyx cupular, truncate, with 3 very minute projecting 
teeth; the corolla about twice as long as tbe calyx, its segments triangular, acute. 
Neuter flowers slender, acute, 5 mm. long; their calyx with 3 acute teeth; their corolla 
about twice as long. Fruiting spadiz very broadly ovate, very dense, 20 cm. long, 
15 cm. broad in one specimen; the basal internode of its main axis slightly 
compressed, 2 cm. long, 1 cm. thick, not at all swollen at the base. Fruiting 
perianth explanate. Fruit globose, often very slightly depressed, very suddenly and 
distinctly conically beaked, 14-16 mm. in diam., 12-14 mm. long (not including 
beak); scales in 18 series, superficially channelled along the centre, shining, reddish 
or straw-yellowish brown, with a narrow, light, scarious and erosely toothed margin 
and a more or less distinct intramarginal line; the tip rather distinctly produced, 
obtuse, often with a more or less distinct dark spot at its base. Seed somewhat 
_ broader than long, almost equally bi-convex, 12-13 mm. across, 11 mm. high, 9 
mm. thick, elliptical in vertical section. 
HasiraTt.—Sumatra, in the province of Palembang. Malayan name “ Rotang Sobo.” 
