The Palms of British East India. 337 



Spadices axillary, 4-5 feet long, alternately branched, nodding. 

 Branches 1-1^ foot long, spreading, dichotomous at the mouths of the 

 spathes, much divided into forked or simple spreading branchlets 

 (spikes), 6-10 inches long. Spathes coriaceous, fuscous or chesnut 

 coloured, concealing the whole peduncle, with erect adpressed acu- 

 minate limbs; the lower ones generally more or less reticulately split. 



Flowers sessile, the lower ones several together, upper solitary. 

 Calyx minute, cup-shaped from a broad base, divided to the middle 

 into three round teeth. Corolla (in bud) depressed, a little longer 

 than the calyx, divided nearly to the base into three broad segments. 

 Stamina 6 ; filaments united to the corolla as far as the base of the 

 segments, there (free) short, dilated. Anthers oblong-ovate or cor- 

 date-ovate. Ovarium oblong-obturbinate, sculptured at the apex, the 

 three carpels cohering by the style, which is trisulcate, filiform, about 

 three times shorter than the ovarium. Ovula solitary, erect, ana- 

 tropous. 



Spadix of the fruit nodding, otherwise unchanged, branchlets sub- 

 secund, yellowish. Berry globose, of the size of a small bullet, near- 

 ly dry, of an azure blue ; smooth, somewhat oblique, surrounded at 

 the base by the perianthium. Endocarp thickish, subosseous. Seed 

 with a large cavity filled with the tegument. Embryo central. 



Although the vernacular name given by Blume for L. rotun- 

 difolia is the same, and the fruit agrees well with the figure 

 of Martius, yet there are so many discrepancies in his de- 

 scription, as regards the arming of the petiole, the degree of 

 acumination of the segments of the leaves, which is described 

 as less than in L. sinensis, and their general size, that I am 

 compelled to consider this distinct. 



Rumph's figure, quoted by Blume and Martius under L. 

 rotundifolia, gives no idea of the habit except as regards the 

 fruit-hearing spadix. And I do not think it probable that the 

 retrofracted pendulous divisions of the leaves, for which this 



are 4£ feet long, the secondary divisions about 3 feet long. The central divisions 

 reach to about 3 feet from the apex of the petiole, are 3-3* feet long, their secondary 

 divisions 3 feet long, and even more acuminate and filiform than the rest. 



