58 Memoirs Bernice P. Bishop Mitscitiii. 



whole spadix is about 1.50 m. long, composed of several (5) nearly equal partial 

 inflorescences, which are separated from each other near the common base, and 

 carry solitary panicles at the end of long slender peduncular parts. Spafhcs rigid, 

 scantily covered with fugaceous. silvery or brownish paleae, and are finally almost 

 glabrous. The panicles are about 30 cm. long, and twice branched; apparently 

 only the uppermost of the 5 panicles carries fertile flowers; the floriferous branch- 

 lets are short and thickish, 5-6 cm. long, glabrous, terete, zigzag sinuous between 

 the alternate rather distant flowers. The unopened flowers are narrow and rela- 

 tively long (12-13 "'"''''• Icng, 3.5 mm. through) bluntish often asymmetrical, calyx 

 cyathiform-cylindrical, shortly 3-toothed, not or very obsoletely veined on the 

 teeth of a hard texture, shortly solid at the base. Corolla twice or even a little 

 longer than the calyx, the segments broadly sublinear, striate, staminal ring neck- 

 like, protruding considerably beyond the calyx ; filaments rigid, radiating, anthers 

 linear-sagittate, bluntish ; ovary conical, not sculptured above, gradually narrowed 

 into the thickish, 3-sulcate style. Fruit somewhat variable in shape, ranging from 

 oval to spherical, apparently usually not quite symmetrical and with a slightly 

 gibbous base, 3-3.5 cm. long, 2.5-3 cm. in diameter, made distinctly mucronate 

 by the remains of the style; the surface is polished and black; mesocarp strongly 

 fibrous; endocarp polished and cinnamon-brown inside, thinly woodv. Seed 

 spherical, 18-20 mm. in diani. fruiting perianth depressed, and very shortly pedi- 

 celliform, 5 mm. broad, 2 mm. high. 



Habitat. — It grows on the island of Hawaii about six miles in the forest, 

 elevation iioo m., in the forest near Glenwood, which lies 22 miles on the road to 

 Kilauea Volcano. Collected by Rock and Copeland on December 23, 1914. (No. 

 10356 in the College of Hawaii Herbarium.) 



Observations. — About this Pritcliardia Professor Rock informs me that it 

 is a beautiful palm of fine symmetry. The spadix has five main branches (in 

 No. 10356) the four lower branches seem to be sterile and have spreading florifer- 

 ous branchlets, while the last one is densely clustered, and the branchlets are very 

 short and bear fertile flowers. It is a very distinct species, and very difi^erent 

 from any other Pritcliardia known to me. There are hundreds of them in the 

 forests near Glenwood. The leaves resemble more those of Pr. pacifica than 

 those of any Hawaiian species, and their upper sides are convex with shallow 

 furrows, while the leaves of the other species are unevenly wavy, thus neither 

 convex nor concave. The fruits of Pr. Beceariaua seem to be extremely variable, 

 and vary in size and shape, even on one and the same inflorescence, from globose 

 to ovoid. Whether this variability has anything to do with certain insects which 

 attack the fruits I am unable to say. Pr. Beccariana is especially characterized by: 

 the tall stem and large leaves, the latter having the intermediate segments cleft 

 into non-drooping apices, and sprinkled, but not very closely, on the lower surfaces 

 with small hvaline. elliptical, fringed lepidia; by the spadices composed of 3-5 

 partial inflorescences, and having glabrous, floriferous branchlets; by the calyx 

 being tubular-cvlindraceous and of a hard texture; by the staminal ring protruding 

 considerably above the calyx; by the conical not sculptured ovary, gradually pass- 



