THE PALMS OF BRITI8R INDIA AND CEYLON. 73 



thick as a man's arm, sometimes from an erect branching stem, 

 reaching 20 feet high. Leaves 2-4 feet long and broad, cuneately 

 flabellate, rigid, plicate, greyish-green, consisting of 8-15 linear 

 rigid segments 12-15 inches long, with often interposed fibres, 

 folded, 2-partite ; petioles unarmed, 6-12 inches long; base of 

 petiole without any reticulate inner layer, but with a mass of rust- 

 coloured wool. Flowers polygamous, male and hermaphodite. 

 Spadix pyramidal ; branches ascending and recurved ; branchlets 

 slender ; branches and branchlets arising from the axils of tubular, 

 membranous, sheathing bracts with prominent, reticulate, longi- 

 tudinal nerves ; branchlets bifarious, with numerous flow^ers in the 

 axils of turbinate, membranous, sheathing bracts, with a thin 

 membranous edge. All the bracts are closed sheaths, with a short, 

 subulate or triangular apex ; they are spirally arranged, though 

 apparently distichous on the principal axis and the main branches. 

 Flowers in pairs in the axils of hyaline bracts, distinct or connate, 

 and bicuspidate. Calyx thinly membranous, flat, 3-toothed. Petals 

 connate at the base. Stamens G, sometimes 9 in the male flowers, 

 in the male flowers inserted in the corolla-tube, in hermaphrodite 

 flowers in its throat ; anthers sagittate, attached at the back above 

 the base to the subulate filaments. Ovary 3-celled, narrowed into 

 the short style. Fruit an ovoid or subglobose 1 -seeded drupe, with 

 the rudiments of 2 abortive carpels, supported by the marcescent 

 calyx, petals, and the remains of the filaments, ^-|- inch in diameter 

 surface minutety wrinkled ; albumen horny, with a central cavity. 



Beccari is of opinion that there exist several forms of Nan- 

 norho^ys ritchieana on account of its wide distribution in the 

 arid region of Western India, Baluchistan and Afghanistan. 

 He says that the seeds show marked differences, some being 

 spherical, others oval, some measuring ^ inch in diameter, others 

 I inch. The seeds are said to be very hard and the albumen 

 homogeneous. '^ 



Germination. — The successive stages in the development of 

 this palm, as observed by Holm,^ are given in figure 16, whic h 



- Beccari, 0. Notizie sul ' Nannorlwps Bitchiecma ' H. Wendl. Webbia, vol. i 

 (1905), p. 73. 



1 Holm in " Memoirs Torrey Bot. Club, " Vol. II. 

 10 



