Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 



405 



The leaves are whitish or greyish on the lower surface, where they are, 

 also, sprinkled with very small whitish-brown dots, not easily distinguish- 

 able without the assistance of a lens; the segments appear to be very closely 

 longitudinally veined by numerous secondary nerves. The spadices are 

 divided into several partial inflorescences, which are composed of slender, 

 subulate, straight and rigid branchlets, which form all together rather loose 

 ovoid or oblong panicles. The flowers and fruits are sessile on the branchlets. 



The fruits are very small, and hardly attain 4 mm. in diam., but those 

 seen by me are not perfectly mature, although sufficiently evolute to show 

 the albumen completely perforated from base to top ; and in this the plant 

 would appear to be quite distinct from T. punctulata which it otherwise 

 resembles in its straight, rigid, flower-bearing branchlets, and in its very 

 small fruits. (Figure 165). 



T. drudei is known to me only from Wright's specimen n. 3965, which 

 presents no thoroughly mature fruits and no flowers. 

 Thrinax punctulata Becc. in Webbia di U. Mart., II (1907), 280. 



Figure 165. Thrinax drudei. a, fruit with the perianth as seen from below; b, seed; 

 c, seed cut longitudinally through the embryo. From Wright No. 3965. 



As it appears in the photograph (Plate 166) taken on the precipitous 

 limestone cliffs of the forest-clad Mount Guanajay, this is a very 

 elegant palm, which attains about forty feet of height, and has a straight 

 cylindrical stem, marked by the usual approximate ring-like sears, and is 

 terminated by a rather well furnished and elongate crown of leaves. The 

 leaves have rather enlarged, elongate, ascendent bases, from which the long 

 and slender petioles, sustaining the elegant radiately divided blades, rise in 

 graceful curves. The dead leaves do not remain long to cover the trunk, 

 which, except at its summit, is naked and of the uniform diameter of 7-8 

 cm. throughout. The base of the trunk has the same system of rootlets as 

 in T. wendlandiana. The leaves have the divisions whitish on their lower 

 surfaces, where they are, moreover, more densely dotted than in the other 

 species, with small, ferrugineous, elliptical scales, and have 10-12 very 

 slender, secondary nerves on each side of the midrib. The primary branches 

 or partial inflorescences form rather dense ovoidal panicles, composed of 

 slender flower-bearing branchlets, of which the lower and larger are 7-8 cm. 

 long. The flowers are unknown. The fruits are quite sessile and very small, 

 barely attaining 4 mm. in diameter. The seed is only 2.5 mm. in diameter 

 and has the intrusion of the integument broadly conical, reaching to about 

 the center of the albumen. (Figure 167). 



