1682 CXLII. PALM^. 



10 *PHCENIX, Linn. 

 (An old Greek name of the Date Palm.) 

 Spadices usually several, interfoliar, erect or drooping in fruit, branched ; spatha. 

 basal complete coriacejus ; flowers small, yellowish coriaceous. -Male flowers; 

 calyx cupular, 3-toothed ; petals 3, obliquely ovate, yalvaite ; stamens 6 (3 to 9},. 

 filaments subulate, anthers erect, dorsifixed; pi^lHibSer minute or wanting. 

 Female flowers : globose, calyx of the males, enlarged after flowering ;' petals^ 

 rounded, imbricate ; staminodia 6, or a 6-toothed cup ; carpels 3, free, stigma, 

 sessile, uncinate, ovules erect. Fruit oblong, terete, 1-seeded, stigma terminal^ 

 pericarp fleshy, endocarp membranous. Seed oblong ventrally grooved ; 

 albumen equable or subruminate ; embryo dorsal or subbasal. — Low or talf 

 dioecious palms. Leaves pinnate ; segments lanceolate or ensiform, side* 

 indupticate. 

 Species belonging to Africa and Asia. 



1. P. dactylifera (date-bearing), Linn. sp. PI. 1188. Common Date Palm. 

 Said to attain the height of 100ft., the trunk covered with the persistent bases of 

 the old leaves, often producing near the base side shoots or suckers. Leaves 10 or 

 more feet long, gray, segments or leaflets 8 to 16in. long, regularly distichous, 

 often approximate in twos or threes on the same side as the rhachis. Flowers t 

 Male on separate trees from the female, in large panicles. Fruit 1 to Sin. long,, 

 pulp very sweet. 



Hab.: Africa. 



This useful tree may be met with outside of cultivation where it hag sprung up spontaneously 

 from seed thrown away by persons who may have been eating the imported fruit. 



11. LICUALA, Kumph. 

 (The name of one species in the Macassar language.) 



Flowers hermaphrodite, in a loose panicle with sheathing bracts on the main 

 rhachis and peduncle. Outer perianth 3-lobed, or 3-toothed ; inner of 3-valved 

 segments. Stamens 6, the filaments united in a cup or ring and very shortly 

 free ; anthers sagittate. Ovary laterally 3-lobed, the carpels readily separating, 

 with 1 erect ovule in each ; style columnar, with 3 small stigmas. Fruit globular, 

 reduced by abortion to 1 carpel, the pericarp fleshy but at length hard, scarcely 

 fibrous. Seed erect, the hilum somewhat lateral. Albumen horny with a deep- 

 irregularly branched excavation on the inner side, filled with a brown spongy 

 tissue. Embryo dorsal. — Palms usually slender or low. Leaves large, fan-shaped 

 but usually closed all around so as to appear peltate, the plicate lobes more or 

 less truncate and toothed at the end. Panicles from among the leaves, 

 often long, the partial panicles between the sheathing bracts usually dividei 

 into few spreading spikes. Flowers small. 



The genus is widely spread over tropical Asia, the only Australian species is endemic. 



1. Ii. Mueller! (after Baron Mueller), Wendl. and Bnule in Linnaa, xxxix.. 

 223 ; Benth. Fl. Austr. vii. 145. " Moor-goo-doo," Cairns, Nugent. " Moi-yur," 

 Bloomfield Eiver, Roth. " Chakoro," TuUy Eiver, Roth. Thirty to fifty feet 

 high. Leaves closed all round so as to appear peltate, plicate, and divided 

 to more than half the length into truncate lobes obtusely toothed and jagged! 

 and 2 to Sin. broad at the end, the whole leaf forming a flat stiff shield-like 

 disk of 6| or more feet across. Fruits crimson in large straggling panicles,, 

 ovoid-globular, 4 to 5 lines diameter. Albumen penetrated by a deep irregularly 

 branched excavation. Embryo dorsal. — Livistona Ramsayi, F. v. M. Fragm^ 

 viii. 221. 



Hab.: Dalrymple Gap, Rockingham Bay, Dallachy ; Johnstone, Tully and Murray Rivers. 



Outer part of stem hard and marked with narrow black lines. — Bailey's Cat. Ql, Woods, No^ 

 420. 



