72 The Palms of British East India. 



re volute at the apex, coriaceous, armed on the back with very 

 strong broad spines, of which the uppermost along the margins 

 are a good deal the longest, and awl-shaped from a flat base. 

 Branches several, with the same ascending direction as the pedun- 

 cle, naked at the base. Spikes 2-3 inches long, also ascending, slen- 

 der, flexuose, ferrugineo-furfuraceous, suffulted at the base by an 

 obscure squamiform bracte. 



Flowers solitary on short stalks, occupying the flexures, stalk 

 furnished with one minute bracteole ! Calyx short, cupshaped, ob- 

 soletely three- toothed, teeth short, villous at the points. Corolla 

 with a sub-globose base, twice as long as the calyx, divided to the 

 middle ; segments half-lanceolate, spreading. Stamina adhering to 

 corolla to the base of its segments ; anthers linear- sagittate, effete, on 

 very short filaments. Ovarium ovate-roundish, covered with shortly 

 ciliate scales, 3-celled at the base. Style divided to the base into 

 three oblong- clavate segments, very lamellar, and papillose on the 

 inner surface and sides. 



Fruit bearing spadix with or without the spathe. Spikes spreading, 

 very flexuose. Stalks of the fruit spreading. Fruit surrounded at the 

 base by the persistent envelopes, elliptic, shortly mammillate at the 

 apex. Scales large, cartilaginous, appearing to the naked eye to have 

 two lines down the centre, margins cartilaginous. Seed 1, oblong, 

 erect. Tegument dark- brown, with the usual resiniferous pits, rather 

 thick in some parts. Albumen horny, deeply ruminate. Embryo 

 basilar. 



This species is closely allied to C. platyacanthos, Mart. 

 from which, however, it is at once distinguishable by the 

 enormously long spines of the margins of the mouths of the 

 sheaths. The armature of the lowermost and most persis- 

 tent spathe also differs in the analogous elongation of the 

 spine of its apex. The teeth of the calyx are moreover 

 tufted with hairs, and the fruit of the same period of deve- 

 lopment is oblong, not obovate as in the species alluded to. 

 Martius also gives the spadices in his species as " pedes 

 nonnullos longi."* 



* Palm. loc. cit. 



