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



Illustration : Plate XLIX. — The specimen of the Sugar Palm, 

 figured on this plate, grows in the Botanic Gardens of Peradeniya. 

 This palm has usually a much denser crown than appears from our 

 illustration. 



The photograph has been kindly supplied by Mr. Macmillan. 



ARENGA WIGHTII, Griff, in Calc. Journ.Nat. Hist. V, 475, Palm Brit. 

 India, 167, t. 235, E ;Hook. Fl. Brit. Ind. VI. 422,Brandis, Ind. Trees 648. 



Names : — Wight's Sago Palm ; Dhudasal (Kan.); Alam panel 

 (Tam.). 



Description: — Monoecious. Trunk short, 3-30 feet high, as thick 

 as a man's thigh, soboliferous, forming dense clumps. Leaves 20-28 

 feet long ; the lower naked part of the petiole is 6-8 feet long ; 

 leaflets alternate, crowded, linear-ensiform, 3-3^ feet long by 1^-2 

 inches, white underneath, with 2 large auricles at the base, the 

 lower of which (1^-2 inches long) obliquely overlying the petiole, 

 margins sparingly toothed from the middle upwards; apex narrowed, 

 unequally bi-lobed, erose ; the terminal lobe is narrow-cuneate, 2-3- 

 lobed, base shortly 2-auricled, apex truncate, lobulose, coneate, 

 j agged-dentate . 



Sapdix decurved, pendulous, about 4 feet long ; peduncle before 

 branching about 2 feet long, quite concealed by the sheathing imbri- 

 cate, lacerate spathes ; male flowers strongly scented ; branches of 

 the spadix about 2 feet long, subfastigiate, slender, with a scaly bract 

 at the base of each ; flowers rather distant, rather large, in pairs, 

 with a vertical scale interposed ; buds acute ; sepals 3, roundish, im- 

 bricate, with thick bases ; petals 3, oblong, very thick and cariaceous; 

 stamens numerous ; filaments short : anthers linear, adnate, apiculate, 

 pistillode zero Female flowers : branches of spadix alternate towards 

 the ends, where they bear rudimentary flowers ; flowers solitary, 

 each in a shallow, entire or bi-lobed cup ; sepals small, broadly cor- 

 date ; petals triangular, acute or cuspidate, valvate ; staminodes 

 several (Griflath does not find any shortly after fecundation); ovarj?- 

 roundish, 3-celled ; stj^'les 3, short, recui"ved. 



Fruit spirally arranged and crowded on the lower halves of the 

 branches of the spadix (the upper halves being naked), about the 

 size of a crab-apple, giobosely turbinate, broader than long, much 

 depressed at the apex, crowned with the remains of the stigmas. 

 Seeds 3, convex on one face, unequally angular on the other, sepa- 

 rating easily except at the base, from the black papery endocarp, 

 brown, smooth, marked copiouslj^ Avith slightly branched veins, 

 converging at the apex of the seed. Albumen horny ; embryo dorsal. 



Habitat : — Deccan and Western Peninsula: Dense forests on hills 

 about Coimbatore, Nilghiri hills, alt. 3,000 feet ; Ankola and Divi- 

 mana Ghats of Northern Kanara ; common on the Mushki Ghat at 

 about 1,500 feet elevation; very common on the Ghats near the 

 falls of Gairsppa in evergreen forests. Travancore 500-3,000 feet. 



