76 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXII. 



Plate XLII. — This photograph, taken in the Botanic Gardens of 

 Peradeniya, shows a male specimen of Lodoicea. From between 

 the stout petioles arise six flowering spadices. The flowers are 

 distinctly visible. 



Plate XLIII. — A fruiting specimen of the Double Cocoanut Palm 

 growing on Praslin Island. The spadices are bent down and rest 

 on the stem on account of the heavy weight of the numerous 

 gigantic fruits. The palm seems to develop a much denser crown 

 of leaves when not pressed on all sides by a luxurious vegetation as 

 is the case on Plate XLI. 



Plate XLIV. — The central part of the crown with several female 

 spadices bearing fruits at different stages of development. 



Plate XLV. — A grove of Lodoiceas in the Coco-de-mer Valley 

 of Praslin Island. The stems are straight and uniformljr thick up 

 to a few yards below the crown. 



IV— CEROXYLIN^.' 



Spadix simple or one or several times branched ; flowers 

 diclinous, usuallj^ dimorphic ; when dioecious, solitary with rudi- 

 mentary bracts, when monoecious usually in cymes of 3 flowers, 2 

 being male and 1 female, or rarely 8 males and one at the end of 

 the row being female ; carpels 3, 3-2-1-locular ; fruit smooth, not 

 scaly ; feather leaves. 



6. ARECINEiE. 



Berry of 3 carpels, united or separating after fertilization; 

 exceptional!}^ a fibrous woody endocarp is formed. 



Distribution. — In the tropics of all the continents ; little 

 represented on the African continent, increasing on the East- 

 African islands, with the greatest number in the Indian region 

 from Assam and Malacca to the south-eastern islands of the Malay 

 Archipelago, the north-eastern coast of Australia and New Zealand ; 

 with different sub-tribes in America from Mexico and the Antilles 

 to Rio de Janeiro and Juan Fernandez. 



A. Sub-tribe : Caryotece. 



Spadix in the axils of living or dead leaves ; peduncle clothed 

 with several tubular, incomplete spathes (except Orania which 

 has got 2 spathes) ; flowers free on the slender branches of the 1st 

 and 2nd order. Male flowers symmetrical, usually with many 

 stamens. Calyx of 3 sepals, imbricate. Corolla deeply 3- 

 partite, valvate. Female flowers with a corolla of 3 leaves or 



1 According to the systematic arrangement of the pahns, the Lepidocaryina- 

 would be the next sub-order to be described after the Borassinm. But as we have 

 not been able up to now to procure a sufficient number of good photographs of that 

 sub-order, we decided to deal with the Lepidocaryince at the end of our series, via, 

 after the Ceroxylince. 



