194 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALOUITA. (D. acanthobolus 
the largest, 16-18 cm. long, erecto patent, kept spreading by a rather distinct 
axillary callus, have a short (10-15 mm. long) plano-convex pedicellar part, and 
5-6 distichous spikelets on each side; secondary spathes thinly membranous, brittle, 
exsuccous or scarious, embracing, broadly triangular, acuminate; spikelets erecto- 
patent, the lower 7-8 cm, long, with 5-6  bifarious flowers on each side; 
the upper somewhat shorter and with fewer flowers ; their axis flexuous, and 
more or less covered with a rusty scurf detaching in flakes ; the joints between two 
flowers curved; spathels very thinly membranous, reddish, brittle, shortly annular, 
and loosely embracing, produced at one side into a very broad triangular and acute 
point; involucrophorum obconical, usually distinctly pedicelliform in the basal part 
of the spikelets, and almost sessile at the upper end; the limb membranous 
sub-infundibular, and, at one side, slightly produced; involucre irregularly 
cupular, more or less unilaterally evolute; areola of the neuter flower concave, 
niche-ike, sharply bordered, oblong or sub orbicular, the scar not swollen. Female 
flowers narrowly ovoid, 5 mm. long; the calyx campanulate, obsoletely 3-toothed, 
but soon irregularly split, with a callous base; the corolla not quite twice as long 
as the calyx, and like it not distinctly veined externally; staminal urceolum coni- 
cal and free in its upper part where crowned with 6 triangular teeth; the 
upper part frequently carried up with the growing ovaries to form a muff-like 
sheath to the beak of the young fruit Fruiting perianth almost explanate, Fruit 
spherical, 16-17 mm. in diameter, sometimes very slightiy depressed on the top, 
shortly and abruptly beaked; scales in 15 longitudinal series, grooved along the 
centre, dull, of a dirty-straw colour, at times tinged with red but not resiniferous, 
with a darker, very obtuse point, and the margins very minutely, but distinetly, 
erosely-toothed. Seed globular, 10 mm. in diameter, finely tubereled and pitted, its. 
raphal side slightly ventricose; chalazal fovea indistinct, punctiform; embryo basal. 
Hasrrar.—N.E. Borneo, in Sarawak near Kuching (Beccari P. B. No. 22) and 
at Mattang (Hewitt in Herb. Kew.—wale plant); a specimen of the male plant was 
also collected in the wet forests of Borneo by Lobb (Herb. Kew, without a special 
locality) S.E. Sumatra at Muara Enim in the interior of the Residency of 
Palembang (Zeysmann No. 3581 in Herb. Hort. bot. Bog. of Calcutta’, Vernacular 
name in Palembang dialect ‘‘ Houe kouro ràc (Teysmann).” 
OssERvATIONS.—JD, acanthobolus is related to D. geniculatus and especially to D 
scapigerus; the armament of the leaf-sheaths of both is very similar; but the branch- 
ing of the female flowering panicle is widely different, being contracted and With. 
few branches in D. seapigerus, and elongate, much branched, ovoid-eupressiform, and 
acuminate in D. acanthobolus. In Lobb’s specimen the leaves are said to be 8-9 fae 
in length; they terminate in a very slender rudimentary cirrus. | 
In Hewitts male specimen the spadix is smaller than in that of Lobb; the 
panicle is 22 cm. lony, supported by as long a peduncular part; the partial inflo. 
rescences are 6-7 in number and the largest are only 4-5 em. long; no differences 
in the flowers; the cutermost spathe has tufts of bristles only on the keels. 
