D. verticillaris | BECCARI THE SPECIES OF DAEMONOROPS, 107 
spiniferous, horizontal or oblique, broad, membranous, light-coloured, deflexed collars, 
formed by the united bases of large, 4-6 em. long, flat, light-coloured, often sinu- 
ous, black-tipped spines intermingled with minute, black, rigid. glossy spiculae, which 
fill up the spaces between them; each of these collars has another below it, as 
broad or at times narrower, pointing upwards but fringed only with minute 
spiculae; sometimes instead of a lower spiculiferous collar about as large as the 
upper and spinous, one much narrower or even reduced to a simple ring of 
spiculae united by their bases will be found; these double collars have, between the 
upper and lower collar of each pair, an annular hollow ant-harbouring gallery, the 
spaces left by the decussate spines being choked up with rubbish brought there by 
ants that inhabit them; the mouths of the sheaths are obliquely truncate and 
armed. with several very long (up to 15-18 cm.) erect, straight, flat, subulate, light- 
coloured spines. Ocrea indistinct, Leaves large, 1°5-2 m. long in the pinniferous 
pert, and terminating in a long, robust and at short intervals strongly-clawed 
eirrus ; petiole elongaje, 40-60 cm. long, robust, slightly flattened-biconvex, with very 
obtuse edges, armed densely all round, at short infervals, with more or less com- 
plete rings of very minute, confluent prickles, and on the back with comb-like 
series of rather large, unequal spines; rachis, in its lower portion, armed also on 
both surfaces with more or less interrupted and approximate series of small, pecti- 
nate, often tuberculiform prickles; on the lower surface the pectinate spines are 
gradually transformed into rather strong, black-tipped, digitate and still higher up 
into closely half-whorled claws; on the upper surface the rachis is obtusely convex 
in its lowest portion, and has a furrow on each side for the insertion of the — 
leaflets and from the middle upwards is  bifaced with a more or less prickly 
throughout salient angle; leaflets numerous, equidistant, 3-4 cm, apart, rather firmly 
papyraceous, almost shining, green and  subconcolorous on both surfaces, narrowly 
lanceolate, broadest a little below the middle, thence tapering towards the base 
gradually acuminate towards a subulate and, at the sides, bristly tip; the mid, 
costa is rather strong, sharp and sparsely bristly, while the secondary nerves are 
slender and bald underneath; the mid-costa is rather closely bristly, and one 
or two secondary nerves on each side of it are sprinkled with small, 
spreading bristles, or quite glabrous; transverse veinlets not very conspicuous, 
short and interrupted; margins minutely, appressedly and not very closely 
spinulous; the largest leaflets usually 40-45 em, long, and 20-23 mm. broad, but 
occasionally only 25 cm. by 15 mm. Male spadiz before flowering very slender 
cylindraceous, acuminate, the spathes not very much protruding one above the 
other; during the anthesis the spadix forms a large, elongate-cupressiform, 0:8-1:2 m. 
long, supradecompound panicle, more or less rusty-furfuraceous in every part and 
supported on a very short, flattened, unarmed or at the sides slightly spinulous, 
peduncular part; the primary spathes spread out, are flat during the anthesis, 
are easily detached, thickly papyraceous, or thinly coriaceous; the outermost is 
not much larger than the others, is narrowly lanceolate, and long acuminate 
40-45 cm. long and about 3 cm. broad, internally glabrous, striate, and of a cinna- 
mon-brown colour, obsoletely keeled externally, where it is more or less persistently 
furfuraceous and densely covered with very approximate, transverse, interrupted 
series of innumerable, eriniform, shining, black, needle-like, brittle, confluent, always 
