24 
show prolification: from the glumes rises a little stem with 3 
to 4 leaves, of which the two youngest produce a wide blade. 
PALMAE. 
Cocos nucifera L. 
a) Legit H. Hoysmans in suo horto Buitenzorg. 
_ A few years ago') we gave a description of a very disturbed 
inflorescence of the Cocoa-Palm. From the branches of a spadix 
there sprang instead of 1—4 female flowers a whole series of 
them thus causing a supernumerary quantity of fruits though 
of reduced size and even various shapes. The material now 
come to hand calls, indeed, to mind the then stirring case, but 
shows its peculiarities in such a pure form as to make it worth 
while once more to bring the question of supernumerary nuts 
on the tapis. 
The normal state is represented by fig. 26: the branches of 
the spadix produce at the base a small number of flowers, at 
the most 4, in weak inflorescences even but one. These flowers 
are Q and as a rule flanked by two o flowers each. 
The rest of each branch is covered with male flowers whether 
paired or (at the top) solitary. 
The abnormal specimens are unbranched fig. 27 or now and 
then provided with one branch (fig. 28, Pl. VI). In these cases the 
axis itself bears the flowers, in a great number up to 150. It de- 
serves moreover attention that all the Q flowers are paired and 
that also the o flowers which flank them show the double 
number, thus rendering a series of 3 (as in normal spadices) 
to as many as 6 in the cases under consideration (fig. 29). As 
the male flowers soon perish, in our figures 26—28) only the 
2 flowers are to be seen. 
At Buitenzorg there are two specimens of this remarkable 
tree, one in Mr. Huysmans’s garden, one in a, not indicated, place. 
Mr. C. van Zisr, who made the photo's reproduced in our figures 
26—28, found another specimen at Malang. 
Moreover Mr. Smirn received a dried specimen from Bagansi 
1) 2e Série, Vol. IX, p. 101, vide also Worsdell. Il, p. 191. 
