THE PALMS OF BRITISH INDIA AND CEYLON, 81 



slightly inflexed. Ovary turbinate, towards the base smooth and 

 3-partible, above entire and villous. Ovule solitarj^, erect, anatro- 

 pous. Style cylindric, rather shorter than the ovary, hollow at the 

 apex. Stigmas 3, minute. Fruit seated on the stout pedicel-like 

 tube of the calyx, surrounded at the base by the perianth and 

 annulus of the stamens, apiciilate by the style, 1 -seeded. Endo- 

 carp thin, sub-osseous. 



Habitat. — Tenasserim coast in forests near Lainear to the 

 south of Mergui ; Malacca, solitary in dense forests, Ayer Punnus 

 Goonoong Miring, and Mount Ophir, but not above an elevation 

 of a thousand feet. 



Flowers — Nearly all the year. 



LICUALA SPINOSA, Wurmb. in Verh. Bat. Genootsch. II, 469 

 Roxb. Fl. Ind. II, 181 ? (excl. syn. Rumph.) ; Griff, in Calc. Journ. Nat 

 Hist. V, 321 ; Palms Brit. Ind. 119 ; Blume Rumpb. II, 39, t. 82, 88 

 Mart. Hist. Nat. Palm. Ill, 235, 318, t. 135, 1, 2 ; Mig. Fl. Ind. Bat. Ill 

 53 ; Suppl. 254 ; Becc. Males. Ill, 74. — L. paludosa, Kurz in Journ. As 

 Soc. Beng. xliii, 528 ; For. Fl. II, 528.— X, ramosa, Bl. in Schult. Syst 

 VII, 1303 ; Rumphia II, 39.— i. horrida, Blume Rumph. II. 41, t. 89, f. 1 ; 

 Mart. 1. c. 237, 318.— Corypha pilearia, Lour. Fl. Cocbinch. I, 265. 



Beccari has lately reduced to tbis species bis former varieties : Licuala 

 spinosa var. cochinchinensis and var. brevidens Becc. Malesia HI. There 

 would be no end of varieties, be says, if all tbe different forms of a species 

 so widely distributed were to be described. (Webbia, vol. 3 (1910) p. 240.). 



Name. — Plass (Malay). 



Description. — Stems stout, 8-10 feet high, 2-4 inches in dia- 

 meter, densely tufted, rough with the scars of fallen leaves. 

 Leaves orbicular-reniform, about 4 feet across the broad diameter ; 

 pinnules about 18 in number, narrow-cuneate ; the central ones 

 about 2 feet long ; the terminal one is 10- or 11 -plicate, truncate, 

 with as many lobes as there are plaits, the lateral ones are the 

 ■ deepest, all are obtusely bifid, the intermediate ones are more or less 

 truncate, 3 — 5-lobed, lobes larger and deeper, but otherwise similar 

 to those of the terminal one, the lateral ones with oblique 

 3-lobed ends. Petiole about 4-4^ feet long, obtusely trigonous, 

 margins armed throughout with stout, conical, somewhat curved 

 spines. Ligule very narrow, 1-1|- inch long, scarious, Spathes 

 11 



