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



stigma minute. Fruit of 1-3 fleshy, globose drupes ; styles basilar ; 

 seeds erect, globose or oblong ; albumen uniform ; embryo spiral. 



Species about 6 ; Tropical Asia. 



Cultivation in Europe. — The species of this genus are stove- 

 plants. They are of somewhat slow growth and thrive best in a 

 compost of two parts of loam, one of peat, and one of sand. Per- 

 fect drainage and much water are essential to success. 



CORYPHA ELATA, Roxb., Fl. Ind. II. 176 ; Mart. Hist. Nat. Palm. 

 233 ; Kunth Enum. 111,236; Griff, in Calc. Journ. Nat. Hist. V, 314 ; 

 Palms Brit. Incl. 112, t. 220, D.— Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind. VI, 428 ; Brandis 

 Ind. Trees, 658. 



Name. — Bajur (Beng.). 



Description. — Trunk straight, often varying in thickness, 60-70 

 feet high by about 2 feet in diameter, strongly marked with rough, 

 dark coloured, spiral ridges and furrows. Leaves round the top 

 of the tree, immediately under the base of the inflorescence, 

 numerous, lunate, palmate-pinnatifid, plaited, 8-10 feet in diameter ; 

 segments generally from 40-50 pairs, united about half their 

 length, ensiform, apices rather obtuse and bifid, texture hard, 

 smooth on both sides. When the tree begins to flower, the leaves 

 wither and fall off, leaving the fructiferous part naked ; petioles 

 6-12 feet long, spirally arranged, auricled, concave above, with the 

 thin, hard, black margins thereof cut into numerous very short, 

 curved spines, spadix about ? to { the height of the trunk, 

 much narrower in span than the foliage, supradecompound ; the 

 various and innumerable ramifications are always alternate, smooth, 

 and of a pale yellow colour. Spathes numerous, one at each joint 

 of the various ramifications of the spadix, smooth and when young, 

 of a pale yellowish-green. Flowers small, sessile, collected in 

 little fascicles over the ultimate divisions of the panicle, pale 

 yellow, rather offensive. Calyx small, 3-toothed ; petals 3, oblong, 

 reflexed, shorter than the stamens ; filaments 6, broad at the base, 

 and there united, towards the apex slender and incurved ; anthers 

 ovate, dorsifixed. Ovary superior, round-ovate, suddenly contract- 

 ed into the short style, o-lobed, 3-celled, with 1 ovule in each cell, 

 attached to the bottom of the cell ; style short, 3-grooved ; 



