54 The Palms of British East India. 



23. (13) C. gracilis, aculeis vaginarum et petiolorum soli- 

 tariis sparsis, pinnis fasciculatis (fasciculis distantibus ternis 

 suboppositis) lanceolatis (long. 3-5 uncialibus lat. subuncia- 

 libus) cuspidato-acuminatissimis utrinque triveniis, venis 

 setigeris, spadice subfiliformi spathisque aculeatis, ramis dis- 

 tantibus, spicis paucis simplicibus obsolete scorpioideis, co- 

 rolla calycem triplo excedente.* 



C. gracilis. Roxburgh. Flor. Ind. 3. p. 781. Icones Suppt. 

 5. t. 16. Mart. Palm. p. 210. Tsjeru-tsjurel. Rheed. Hort. 

 Mai \2. t. 64. 



Hab. — Chittagong. Mapoori Bet of the Hindoos of that 

 district. 



"A native of the forests of Chittagong, where Mr. W. Roxburgh 

 found it climbing over trees and bushes to a great extent, and in 

 flower in the month of May. This species is uncommonly slender, 

 when divested of the sheaths of the leaves and dry, scarcely as thick 

 as a common quill, in texture firm and elastic, covered with a smooth, 

 straw-coloured crust as in the common ratan. 



Stems simple, perennial, climbing to a great extent ; all the tender 

 or younger parts toward their extremities invested in the armed 

 sheaths of the leaves, including these about as thick as a man's little 

 finger. Leaves alternate, recurved interruptedly pinnate, if I may 

 be allowed to call a pinnated leaf so, which is destitute of smaller 

 leaflets between the principal ones, from one to two feet long. 

 Leaflets collected in three opposite bundles of from two to four pair 

 each, with much more of the rachis left naked between them than 

 the spaces they occupy, sessile, doubled backwardly at the base, 

 linear-lanceolate, bristly, pointed, both surfaces lucid, three-nerv- 

 ed ; nerves on the upper side as well as the margins bristly, from 

 three to five inches long, and less than one inch broad. Rib or 

 rachis carinated along the upper side, when young covered with 

 ferruginous dust, rounded underneath, and armed with recurved 

 prickles. Flagelli or tendrils issue single as in the other species, 



* Character ex Icone Roxburghiana citata. 



