84 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



versatile, oblong, pale-brown. Ovary depressed, turbinate, with a 

 horny sctilptnred apex ; carpels adhering by the style ; ovules 

 solitary, erect, anatropous ; style subulate, rather shorter than the 

 ovary; stigma simple. Fruit spherical, ^ inch in diameter. 



Habitat. — Malacca, low sandy wet places along the sea-coast, 

 about Tanjong Cling, Bundur, and Pulo Bissar, associated with 

 Fandanus, Eitgenia, Diosijyros, Helospora, etc.; Perak; Siam. 



Introdiiced in gardens. 



Flowers From April to May. 



LICUALA ELEGANS, Bl. Kumphia II, 42, tab. 90 A, B.— Becc. 

 Malesia, III, 71. 



DescriptiojM. — Caudex of the thickness of a man's arm, 4 feet 

 long, erect, with transverse scars. Petioles 3-4-| feet long, the 

 margins with recurved spines, uppermost part of petiole unarmed. 

 Lamina suborbicular, palmatisect, segments about 20, divided 

 almost to the base, the inner ones 16 inches long, linear-cuneiform 

 with the apex straight-truncate, outer ones shorter, linear-lanceo- 

 late, with the apex obliquely trimcate, all glabrous. Spadix 

 elongate, 7 feet long, rigid; spathes incomplete, vaginate, striate, 

 pale green. Calyx in smaller unripe fruits cupuliform, in ripe ones 

 more cylindrical, at the base depressed-truncate on a very short, 

 tuberculiform pedicel, teeth broadly-ovate, subacute, striate, persis- 

 tent. Corolla deeply tripartite, longer than the calyx, with a 

 staminiferous ring. Immature fruit turbinate-giobose, yellowish- 

 green, apex discoid-dilate. Berries ellipsoid, surrounded at the base 

 by the persistent perianth, with the apex rounded, glabrous, fleshy, 

 1 -seeded. Putamen ellipsoid-globose, obsoletely mucronate at the 

 base, thin, fragile, whitish, outer side fibrous-striate, inner side 

 smooth. Seed spheric — ellipsoidal. Albumen with a large irregular 

 cavity, solid, cartilaginous, white. Embryo dorsal, transverse. 



Habitat. — Sumatra. 



Illustration. — Plate XXIV shows a well-developed specimen 

 of Licuala elegans. At first sight this species might easily be 

 mistaken for Licuala i)eltata (Plate XXIII^. The straight-trun- 

 cate segments, however, distinguish L. elegans from L. peltata, 



