876 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXL 



8ABAL, ADANS. FAM. NAT, IT, 495. 



(" Sabal " is said to be a native name in South America ; ,.but 

 Adanson who originated the genus, gives no explanation.) 



Mart. Hist. Nat. Pahn, III, 245 et .319 (exci. S, serndata), t. 

 103, 130.— Benth. et Hook. Gen. PI. Ill, 922.— Drude in Engl. 

 n. Prantl, Pflanzenf. I, 37,— Baill. Hist, des PI. XIII, 313.— Sar- 

 gent, Silva N. Am. X, 37.— Beccari, Webbia II (1907), 10.— 

 Sabal et Inodes, 0. F. Cook in Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, 1901, 

 529. 



Unarmed trees or shrubs, with columnar and often stout or 

 short anniilated endogenous stems ascending while young from a 

 subterranean thickened descending clavate caudex, clothed above 

 for many years with the remnants of the sheathing bases of 

 the petioles of the fallen leaves, and below with light red-brown 

 rind, and long stout tough roots, which ultimatelj^ often form 

 a great densely matted ball at the base of a short underground 

 stem. Leaves terminal, induplicate in vernation, alternate, flabel- 

 late, orbicular, or cuneate at the base, tough and coriaceous, 

 divided from the apex deeply or slightly into many narrow two- 

 parted long-pointed segments plicately folded at the base, inserted 

 obliquely on the sides of the rhachis, often filamentose on the 

 thickened margins, with narrow midribs prominent below, and. 

 numerous slender straight veins; rhachises on. the lower surface 

 rounded and broadly winged toward the base, nearly flat and 

 Avingless towards the apex, and gradually narrowed to above the 

 middle of the blade of the leaf, thin and acute on the upper 

 surface; ligulas adnate to the rhachises, short or elongated, acute, 

 concave, with thin incurved entire margins ; petioles rounded on 

 the back, biconcave with a central ridge on the upper side toward 

 the apex, their margins acute, unarmed, concave and enlarged 

 at the base into elongated chestnut-brown lustrous vaginas of stout 

 tough fibres, young leaves lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, gradually 

 narrowed into slender petioles, entire. Spadix axillary, pedunculate 

 elongated, decompound, at first erect, its rhachis compressed and 

 flattened horizontally ; primary branches short and pendulous or, 



