986 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



Thrinax, Endlicher, Gen. PI. 253 (in part) 1836. — Meissner, 

 Gen. 357 (in part).— Benth. and Hook., Gen. Ill, 930.— Drude, 

 Engl, and Prantl. Pflanzenf. II, pt. Ill, 34 (sect. Euthrinax) .■ — 

 Baillon, Hist. PL XIII, 317 (excl. sect. Hemithrinax). — Sargent, 

 Silva N. Ann. X. 49. (sect. Euthrinax). 



Small unarmed trees, with simple or clustered stems or rarely 

 stemless. Leaves orbicular, or truncate at the base, pale or silvery- 

 white on the lower surface, divided into narrow obliquely-folded 

 segments acuminate and divided at the apex ; rhachises narrow ; 

 ligules thin, free, erect, concave, pointed at the apex ; petioles 

 compressed, slightly rounded and ridged above and below, thin and 

 smooth on the margins, gradually enlarged below, into elongated 

 sheaths of coarse fibres forming an open network covered while 

 young by thick hoary tomentum. Spadix interfoliar, paniculate, 

 shorter than the leaf-stalks, its primary branches furnished with 

 numerous short slender pendulous flower-bearing secondary bran- 

 ches ; spathes numerous, papery, cleft at the apex. Flowers 

 solitary, perfect, jointed on elongated slender pedicels ; perianth 

 cup-shaped, obscurely lobed ; stamens 9-12, inserted on the base of 

 the perianth, with subulate filaments enlarged and barely united 

 at the base, and oblong anthers ; ovary 1 -celled, narrowed into a 

 slender style, crowned by a funnel-formed oblique stigma ; ovule 

 basilar, erect. Fruit a subglobose berry raised on the thickened 

 torus of the flower, with thick juicy black flesh. Seed free, 

 erect, depressed-globose, • with a thick hard vertically-grooved shell 

 deeply infolded in ' the bony albiimen ; hilum basilar, minute : 

 raphe hidden in the folds of the seed-coat ; embryo lateral or 

 apical. 



Species about 15. 



Distribution. — Coccothrinax is confined to the tropics of the 

 New World. Two species, of which one is stemless, inhabit 

 southern Florida, and at least eleven other species are scattered 

 over several of the West Indian Islands. 



Cultivation in Europe. — All the species of this and the next 

 genus are stove-palms. When young they should be kept in a 

 compost of loam, peat and sand ; as they get older, turfy loam 

 and sand is preferable. Propagation is effected by seeds. These 



