72 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



Habitat. — Bengal. 



Flowers. — At the beginning of the hot season ; fruit ripens 9 

 or 10 months afterwards. 



Uses. — The leaves are used for writing upon with pointed steel 

 bodkins ; besides for tying the rafters of the native houses, as 

 they are strong and durable. The wood is not applied to any 

 useful purpose. 



NANN0RH0P8, H. Wendl. Bot. Zeitg. 1879, 147. 

 (From the Greek "Nannos", a dwarf and " rhops", a low shrub.) 



Griff. Palms Brit. Ind., 135.; Aitch. Journ. Lin. Soc. 19, 140, 

 t. 26.— B^th, and Hook. Gen. PI. III. II, 923,84; Boiss. Fl. Or. 

 V. 47, app. 754. 



A gregarious, tufted, low-growing, glabrous palm ; stems . or 

 rhizoms robust, prostrate, branching. Leaves cuneately flabellate, 

 rigid, plicate, split into curved 2-fid segments ; petiole short. 

 Spadix axillary (intrafoliar), much-branched ; spathes tubular, 

 sheathing, spathels ochreate. Flowers polygamous. Calyx tubu- 

 lar, membranous, unequally 3-lobed. Corolla 3-partite, valvate. 

 Stamens in hermaphrodite flowers 6, in male fioM^ers about 9. 

 Ovary 3-gonous ; ovules basilar ; style short ; stigma o-toothed. 

 Drupe small, globose or oblong, 1-seeded ; style basilar. Seed 

 free, erect, ventrally hollowed, hilum small ; albumen laniform ; 

 embryo dorsal or subbasilar. 



Species 1 ; India, Afghanistan. 



NANNORHOPS RITCRIEANA, H. Wendl. in Bot. Zeit. 1879, 148 ; 

 Aitchis. in Journ. Linn. Soc. XIX, 140, 141, 187, t. 26. Chamcerops 

 ritcMeana, Griff, in Calc. Journ. Nat. Hist. V. 342 ; Palms Brit. India 135 ; 

 Brandis For. Fl. 547 : Gard. Chron. 1886, 652, fig. 128, 129 ; Mart. Hist. 

 Nat. Palm. III. 252. 



Names. — Mazari (Vern.) ; Mzarai (trans-Indus^; Maizurrye 

 (Pushtu) ; Kilu, Kaliun CSalt Range) ; the fibre is called patha 

 in the Punjab ; Pfis, Pesh, Pease, Fease, Pfarra, Dhora (Sind, 

 Baluchistan). 



Desckiption. — A low gregarious shrub, the leaves usuallj' tufted 

 from an underground much-branched rhizome 8-10 feet long, as 



