THE BOTANY OF CHRISTMAS ISLAND. 239 



acuminate edge and keel with close-set pale thorns. 

 Male spadix a foot or more long. Bracts about 10 

 linear acuminate 2 feet long or less 1 inch wide white. 

 Branches of spadix 2 inches long or less numerous, 

 acuminate not candate. Stamens very numerous in 

 racemes, anthers linear mucronate much longer than the 

 filaments which are very short. 



Fruit as big as a man's head orange when ripe, rachis 

 stout 6 or more inches long. Syncarps of 5 to 22 

 carpels, 2 inches long oblong, top broad, \ inch wide 

 irregularly angled. Stigmas little elevated. 



Common along the coast edges forming dense almost 

 impenetrable thickets along the whole coast line above 

 the sea. Very near P. Forsteri of Lord Howe's Island. 

 This has just the habit and general appearance of 

 P. odoratissimus, L. the plant that is so common along 

 the Malay coasts, but it is less glaucous, the leaves 

 and bracts not tailed, the syncarps a little shorter 

 and broader and more deeply grooved. The male 

 flowers are indistinguishable. 



P. elatus, n. sp. 



Stems few together 40 to 60 feet tall 6 inches through 

 very hard with numerous short hard aerial roots at the 

 base, grey and sparingly thorny, above with a few erect 

 branches. Leaves when young 6 to 10 feet long, adult 6 

 feet linear acute 4 inches across thorns at the base and 

 tip very numerous and close bases swollen tip red brown 

 J inch long more distant in the middle of the leaf, and 

 distant on the keel. Male spadix dense about 8 inches 

 long. Bracts over a foot long linear acuminate hardly 

 thorny. Spikes very dense 6 inches long 1 inch through 

 or shorter. Stamens fascicled on a short stem, anthers 

 crowded at the top, filaments short anthers oblong obtuse 

 shortly mucronate. Fruit on a peduncle 2 feet long and 

 2 -| inches thick, oblong 12 to 15 inches long 7 inches 

 through. Syncarps \\ to 2 inches across and f inch 



E. A. Soc, No. 46, 1905. 



