686 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIV. 

 IslIPA, Wnrmb. ex Bl. Btimph II, ^2 ; III, t. 164, 165. 



(Nipa is the vernacular name of the palm in the Philippines.) 



Lam. Illustr. t. 897.— Labill. Mem. V. t. 21, 22.— Kunth Enum. 

 PI. III. 110, 589.— Mart. Hist. Nat. Palm. III. 305, t. 108.— Miq. 

 Fl. Ind. Bat. III. 150.— Blanco PI. Filip. 662.— Griff. Ic. PI. 

 Asiat. 244- 247.— Benth.— & Hook. Gen. PI. III. II. 920. 78.— 

 Vidal Fl. Forest. Philip, t. 



A prostrate sestuarial gregarious palm ; rootstock stont, branched, 

 covered with the sheaths of old leaves, leafing and flowering at the 

 ends of the branches. Tjeaves pinnatisect • leaflets linear-lanceolate, 

 sides reduplicate in vernation. Spadix short, terminal, erect in 

 flower, fruiting drooping. Flowers monoecious, male in catkin-like 

 lateral branches of the spadix, female crowded in a terminal head, 

 pei'ianth glumaceous. Male flowers minute, surrounded with setaceous 

 bracteoles ; sepals linear with broad truncate inflexed tips, imbricate ; 

 petals smaller ; stamens 3 ; filaments connate in a ver}- short 

 column; anthers elongate, basifixed ; pistillode 0. Female flowers 

 much longer than the male, sepals 6, rudimentary, displaced, 

 staminodes ; carpels 3, connate, tips free with an oblique stig- 

 maticline ; ovules 3, erect. Fruit lai'ge, globose, hsyijcarp of many 

 obovoid, hexagonal, 1-celled, 1-seeded carpels, wit pyramidal 

 tips and infra-apical stigmas ; pericarp fleshy and fibrous ; endocarp 

 spongy and flower}?- ; seed erect, grooved on one side ; testa 

 coriaceous, viscid within, adherent to the endocarp ; hilum broad ; 

 endosperm horny equable, hollow ; embrj'o basilar, obconie. 

 Species one. 



This genus and Phytelephas are widely different from the other 

 palms, exhibiting affinities to I'cmdancece (Screw-pines) and 

 Gyclanthacece. '"It is therefore a plant of the greatest interest to 

 the botanist, and also, it ma}^ be added, to the geologist, as has been 

 jiistly remarked b}' Bowerbank, Lyell, and J. D. Hooker, arising 

 from the fact that nuts of a similar plant abound in the tertiary 

 formations at the mouth of the Thames, where they once floated 

 about in as great a profusion as those of Nipa fruticans do at the 

 present day in the rivers of the Indian Ocean, until they became 

 buried in the silt and mud which now formes the island of 

 Sheppey." (Seeman). 



NIPA FRUTICANS, Wurmb. in Verh. Bat. Genootsch. 1.349 (1779); 

 Mart. Hist. Nat. Palm. III. 305, t. 208 ; Lam. Illustr. t. 897 ; Kunth. 

 Enum. III. liO, 589 ; Miq. Fl. Ind. Bat. HI. 150 ; Griff. Notul. III. 168 ; Ic. 

 PI. Asiat. 244: Roxb. Fl. Ind. III. 650; Thw. Enum. 327; Kurz. For. Fl. II. 

 541 ; Hooker Fl. Brit. Ind., VI, 424 ; Trimen Flora Ceyl. IV. 3'25—Nipa 

 litoralis, Blanco Fl. de Filipinas 662 — Cocos mipa, Lour. Fl. Oochinch, 

 694 (ed. Willd.) 



