488 The Palms of British East India. 



pairs, the male spadices, which are judging from Roxburgh's 

 figure, quite different, the shape of the flower bud, and the 

 trifid corolla with depressed segments and shorter than the 

 ovarium. 



It is more common in the Gardens than the other, for 

 which it has been so strangely mistaken. 



* * Flores dioici, Stamina indcfinita. 

 Orania. Blume. 

 93. (3) W. nana, (n. sp.) pinnis subquinis oppositis basi 

 cuneatis ceterum obliquis irregulariter lobatis vel dentatis, 

 spathis vaginantibus distichis conduplicatis, fl. fflemineis 

 tripetalis ferrugineo-furfuraceis, spadicibus (faem.) simplici- 

 bus vel 2-3 ramosis, fructibus oblongis 1-spermis (albis.) 



Hab. — Lower Assam, in woods about Gowahatty. Assam 

 Deputation. Major Jenkins, Flowers in July, August. 



Descr.* — A small erect palm from 3 to 5 feet in height. Trunk 

 slender, throwing out roots from the base, covered with sheaths of the 

 leaves. Leaves about 2 feet long; petiole short, roundish, obliquely 

 sheathing at the base, with a thin rete, above produced into a bipartite 

 liguliform body ; pinna alternate or subopposite, cuneate towards the 

 base, above this oblique, variously lobed, toothed and spinuloso-serrate : 

 terminal one irregular in shape, generally bilobed, striate-veined, above 

 green, underneath glaucous white. 



Spadkes axillary. Spathes several, distichously imbricate, ferrugineo- 

 furfuraceous, conduplicate, entirely concealing the peduncle. 



Spadix simple, or with two or three divisions, densely ferrugineo-fur- 

 furaceous, flower-bearing part exserted, about the length of a finger. 

 Flowers densely spiked, small, white, with (at least in the female) an 

 inverted order of expansion. Male Calyx of three rounded, sub-mem- 

 branous sepals. Petals three, oblong, with almost introflexed points, fur- 

 rowed inside from the pressure of the stamina. Stamens about 14, in- 

 serted on a small prominent torus, rather shorter than the petals ; 

 filaments very short ; anthers linear, adnate. No rudiment of a PistUkim. 



Female flowers also white, crowded on a generally simple spadix at- 

 tenuate at the apex and probably there bearing neuter or hermaphro- 

 * From fresh entire specimens communicated by Major Jenkins. 



