326 The Palms of British East India. 



Spadix erect, rather longer than the leaves, stout, simply branched, 

 sprinkled in the upper parts with brown scurf. Spathes tubular, green, 

 lower ones a foot or nearly two feet long, bilobed at the apex, 

 at length variously split, similarly scurfy. Spikes 3-5, solitary, 

 nodding-pendulous, secund, centrifugally developed, a foot (or more) 

 long, pubescent, adnate to the axis to about the middle of the 

 spathe. 



Flowers numerous, on short stalks, solitary, very large, 7 lines 

 long, of a greenish white-colour, covered externally with the same 

 pubescence as the spike, opening centrifugally. Calyx with a 

 funnel-shaped or obconical tube, shortly 3-toothed. Corolla twice 

 as long as the calyx, divided to the calyx into three broadly lanceo- 

 late, coriaceous, reflexed segments. Filaments united among each 

 other and to the corolla as far as the base of its segments, thence 

 free, long, stout, piano-subulate, keeled along the back. Anthers 

 linear, sagittate, exserted, attached near the middle ; otherwise the 

 cells are nearly distinct. 



Ovarium turbinate, short, with a sculptured depressed apex ; 

 carpels cohering by their apices. Ovula solitary, erect, anatropous. 

 Style filiform, slender, three times longer than the ovarium. Stig- 

 ma obsoletely 3-toothed, on a level with the anthers. 



Fruit obovate, oblong, attenuate to the base, red, 1 -seeded, 

 apiculate by base of style, and crowned with the 2 abortive carpels, 

 surrounded at the base by the perianth, the tube of the calyx resem- 

 bling a short pedicel. Seed oblong; excavation passing in above 

 the hilum, oblique, reaching nearly to the apex of the seed, dilated 

 upwards. Albumen horny. Embryo below the middle. 



This, which is the largest and finest species of the genus, 

 is not likely to be confounded with any other. Its large 

 peltate orbicular leaves, simple large pendulous spikes, and 

 comparatively very large flowers, will at once distinguish it. 

 In the leaves it is allied to L. longipes, but that species is 

 almost stemless, the leaves are also dark green, and differ- 

 ently lobed. Martius's figure of the entire plant gives a 

 much better idea of L. spinosa than of this species. 



