D. tabacinus.? BECCARL THE SPECIES OF DAEMONORO S. 93 
spathe, the leat-rachis armed beneath with solitary straight prickles, the leaflets with the 
mid-costa alone setigerous on the upper surface and their margins with only 2-3 long 
eilia near the apex, and the very small dimensions of its vegetative parts, are characters 
that may depend upon nanism and are of little value if not accompanied by essential 
differences in the reproductive organs and especially in the fruit, but the fruit of D. 
peliolaris is unknown. 
On the outer spathe of D. microthamnus, as on that of D. petiolaris, the usual 
pulverulent or seurfy indumentum is accompanied by a kind of coarse pubescence, which 
I have observed only in those two species and in D. tabacinus. 
PLATE 32.—Daemonorops microthamnus Becc, Scortechini’s specimens in Herb. 
Beccari. 
29. DAEMONOROPS TABACINUB Becc. in Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. vi, 166, and in Rec. 
Bot. Surv. Ind. ii, 222. 
Descriprion.—Small, erect 0°7-1 m. high. Sheathed stem about 2 cm. in diam, Almost 
every part of the plant, even the spines, covered more or less abundantly with an adherent 
furfuraceous scurf of a very dark tobacco colour. Leaf-sheaths armed with feeble, 
scattered, laminar, subulate, seriate but individually distinct spines ; the mouth smooth 
Ocrea very short, exactly horizontally truncate, Radical leaves non-cirriferous, elongate, 
considerably larger than the upper ones, and with a very long petiole which is terete, 
6-7 mm. in diam., densely armed towards its base with long flat obliquely and closely 
seriate spines and nearly smooth higher up, except for a few spines along the centre of 
the dorsum. Leaflets very numerous, equidistant, rather closely set, very narrowly linear, 
dull on both surfaces, more or less punctulate-furfuraceous on the lower surface, 23-28 
em. long, about 1 em. broad, rather firm, with the mid-costa and one rather distinct 
nerve on each side of it bristly-spinulous on the upper surface; on the lower 
the mid-costa alone very finely and closely ciliate from the base to the apex; the 
margins finely, closely and spreadingly ciliate. Upper leaves considerably smaller than 
the lower ones (40-50 em. long), shortly cirriferous; the petiole gradually shorter, in 
one specimen of the intermediate part of the stem 30 cm. long, in the higher part, 
flat and finely scabrid above, armed on the margins with long, solitary, rather remote 
horizontal or subdeflexed spines, and on the dorsum with straight or slightly hooked, 1 
em. long prickles, that are solitary at first, becoming on the rachis more claw-shaped and 
3-nate, with the central usually longer than the lateral; leaflets similar to those of the 
radical leaves, but shorter and more rigid, neatly and closely pectinate, the largest 15-20 
em. long, and 1 em, broad, in the uppermost leaves 5-12 cm. long, 5-8 mm. broad with 
the bristles on the mid-costa on the lower surface less numerous than on the radical * 
leaves, on the upper surface usually on the central costa alone; the margins more or less A 
deciduously spreadingly ciliate and bearing traces of the general tobacco-coloured scurf. 
Spadices ventricose-fusiform, or very broadly elliptical, suddenly contracting into a very 
narrow beak which is longer or at least as long as the body, supported by a very short, 
smooth, or marginally prickly pedicel; outermost spathe very broadly cymbiform, 
covered with a very dark tobacco-coloured scurfy pubescence, armed on the back with 
numerous and closely packed, very narrowly laminar and sub-criniform, dull, furfuraceous, 
brittle, elongate (2-3 cm. long) spiculae, that are solitary or confluent and comb-like, especi- 
ally on the keels and at the base of the beak; second and third spathes not distinctly 
keeled, spinous only near the apex, also furfuraceous externally. Mals spadiz with the 
