470 The Palms of British East India, 



Flowers partly immersed in niches with fimbriate membranaceous 

 margins. Males in pairs, tribractreate. Sepals three, oblong-concave, 

 striate, sub-coriaceous. Petals valvate, ovato-lanceolate, sub- acute, 

 coriaceous. Stamens 6 ; filaments stoutish, united at the base, upper part 

 inflexed in aestivation ; anthers large, linear-oblong, 2-celled, versatile. 

 Pollen 1 -plicate. Rudimentary Pistillum angulato-sulcate, conico-cylin- 

 dric, stout, with a discoid three-lobed apex. 



Female flowers in the lower part of the spikes, tribracteate. Sepals 

 as in the male. Petals broad, with a short broad point, imbricate. Six 

 rudimentary stamina. Ovarium roundish, gibbous on one side, attenuated 

 into a short stout style ; with one cell on the gibbous side, containing 

 one appense-pendulous ovulum. Stigmata 3, ovate, small, spreading 

 or recurved. 



Fruit spadix elongated, 1-1 I foot long, presenting at the base the re- 

 mains of the spathes, nodding ; peduncle compressed or sub-trigonal. 

 Fruit sub-drupaceous, oblong, obovate, 5J-6 lines long, 4 wide, sur- 

 rounded at the base by the perianth, very oblique, presenting on one side 

 near the base the style. Seed erect, obovate roundish ; tegument mem- 

 branaceous, inflexed along simple lines, visible on the surface of the 

 seed, converging towards the foramen. Albumen horny, simply ruminate. 

 Embryo basilar. 



It is scarcely distinguishable at first sight from Areca dis- 

 ticha, and like it, varies much in size and shape of the pinnae. 



I have placed both this and Bentinckia in Arecinae, as 

 the bulk of the affinities seems to me to indicate. I cannot 

 perceive the necessary affinity between any of the genera 

 arranged in Endlicher's Genera Plantarum as pinnate-leaved 

 Borassinae, and the true genera of that sub-family. 



Sect. II. 



Spathae plures, incomplete. Flores monoici (vel interdum 

 polygami ?) in uno vel distinctis spadicibus, vel dioici ; mas- 

 culi binati, cum vel absque faemineo interjecto. Corolla feemi- 

 nea valvata. Stamina saepissime indefinita. Ovarium 2-3- 

 triloculare, 2-3-ovulatum. Bacca 1-3-sperma. Albumen 

 aequabile vel (in Caryota) ruminatum. Embryo dorsalis. 



Palmae monocarpicae, interdum ope sobolum perennantes t 

 frutescentes vel saepius arboreae. Folia pinnata vel bipinnata : 



