1899] NEW NORTH AMERICAN TREES 83 
THRINAX Swartz. 
THRINAX Swartz, Prodr.57. 1788; Fl. Ind. Occ.1:614. A/. 77.— Martius, 
Palm. Fam. Gen. 8; Hist. Nat. Palm. 3:255 (in part).— Endlicher, Gen. 357 
(in part).— Drude, in Engler & Prantl Pflanzenfam. II. 3: 34 (§ Porothrinax). 
— Sargent, Silva, 10: 49 (§ Porothrinax). 
Flowers solitary, minute, articulate on slender elongated or 
stout abbreviated disk-like pedicels in the axils of ovate acute 
deciduous bracts. Perianth cupular, truncate at the base, six- 
lobed, the lobes obscure or broadly ovate and acute, persistent 
under the fruit. Stamens six (or nine),? inserted on the base 
of the perianth; filaments subulate, thick and scarcely united at 
the base, or nearly triangular and joined below into a cup adnate 
to the perianth ; anthers oblong, two-celled, opening longitudi- 
nally, inserted on the back below the middle, introrse, becoming 
reflexed and extrorse at maturity. Ovary superior, ovoid, one- 
celled, gradually narrowed into a stout columnar style crowned 
bya broadly funnelform flat or oblique stigma; ovule solitary, 
basilar, erect, hemi-anatropous ; micropyle lateral. Fruit dru- 
paceous, one-seeded, globose, marked at the apex with the rem- 
nants of the style and bearing at the base the slightly thickened 
perianth of the flower; sarcocarp thin, green, crustaceous, ulti- 
mately much thickened, _ivory-white, juicy, bitter and easily 
separable from the thin putamen of two closely adherent coats, 
the Outer crustaceous, pale tawny-brown and slightly tuberculate, 
the inner membranaceous, silvery-white and lustrous. Seed free, 
frect, nearly globose, slightly flattened at the two ends, depressed 
at the base; hilum subbasilar, oblong, pale, conspicuous; raphe 
short, unbranched, obscure; testa thin, pale or dark chestnut 
brown and lustrous ; albumen uniform, more or less deeply pene- 
trated by a broad basal cavity ; embryo lateral. 
Unarmed trees with simple elongated or rarely short stems 
marked below with the ring-like scars of fallen leaf-stalks and 
EE ret ed hrinax parviflora, the type of the genus, and in all the Florida 
be ea holy ax Stamens, but in 7hrinax excelsa Grisebach, of Jamaica, the num- 
the spec; ee, although this fact does not appear in the recent description of 
Pecies in The Botanical Magazine (115: fl. 7088). 
