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



Spikes spreading, stout, marked under each flower with a distinct 

 areola, with attenuate points, bearing neuter flowers with 6 barren 

 stamens and no pistil. Next to these there are some nearly, if not 

 quite hermaphrodite flowers, with usually 3 full sized stamens and 

 apparently a well developed pistil. The other flowers are female, 

 with 3 bracts. Sepals 3, short and rounded. Petals 3, ovately 

 cordate, erect, acute, almost spinously pointed, about twice as long 

 as the ovary, greenish. No staminodes. Ovary with a conical 

 stigma. 



Fruit as large as a nutmeg, ovoid-oblong, rarely 2-seeded. 



Habitat. — Chittagong ; Upper Burma, hills west of Katha, 

 2-3,000 feet, in evergreen forests; Martaban and Tenasserim. 



Illustration : Plate LIU. — The specimen, photographed b}'' 

 Mr. Macmillan, grows in the Botanic Garden of Peradeniya. It 

 forms dense tufts. A comparison of the leaflets of this palm with 

 those of the foregoing species will at once show the difference 

 between the two palms. A few fruiting spikes have been exposed 

 in front. 



WALLICHIA DISTICHA, T. Anders., in Journ. Linn. Soc. XI, 6 ; 

 Hook Fl. Brit. Incl. VI, 419.— W^. yomae, Kurz For. Fl. II. m^. — Caryota 

 mitis, Herb. Calc. — Didy7nos2Jerma distichum Hook f. 



Names. — Minbaw (Upper Burma); Zanaung, Letme (Lower 

 Burma); Katong (Lepcha). 



Description. — An evergreen simple-stemmed palm; trunk 10-20 

 feet high, 6-12 inches in diameter, naked, annulate. Leaves 8-10 

 feet long, distichous, erect; leaflets narrowing from near the truncate 

 apex to the base and with a large tooth on each side about the 

 middle, 1-2 feet long, 2-2|- inches broad, glaucous beneath ; petiole 

 and sheath short, scurfy. 



Male spadix 3-4 feet long, very narrow, linear in outline, with 

 innumerable, recurved, slender, crowded branches. Male calyx 

 cupular, 3-lobed, corolla thrice as long. Female spadix 6-8 feet 

 long, pendulous; branches stout, simple. Female flowers disposed 

 in many spiral series, green ; corolla longer than the ovary. 



Fruit oblong, top obscurely 2-3 lobed, reddish. 



Flowers. — April. 



Habitat. — Gonda Hills, Oudh ; vallej^s of Sikkim Himalaya to 

 2,000 feet; Makum forest, Assam ; Upper Burma, ascending to 

 4,000 feet in the hills east of Bhamo ; Pegu Yonia, chiefly on the 

 eastern slopes. 



Uses. — The Lepchas fell the tree to eat the pith of the stem near 

 its summit. Anderson remarks that the berries and perhaps the 

 leaves irritate the skin (Gamble). 



Illustration : Plate LIV. — The photograph presented by 

 Mr. Macmillan, shows a well-developed specimen of Wallichia 



