Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 365 



below; on each side of the mid-costa are 3-4 slender secondary nerves; the 

 tertiary nerves are numerous, especially distinct underneath; the middle 

 leaflets are 70-75 cm. long and 25-30 mm. broad; the margins are not, or 

 only very slightly thickened ; the transverse veinlets are very much interrupted, 

 and usually too much immersed in the parenchyma to be visible. 



I have not seen the spathes. The spadices on the whole are about 1 m. 

 long, of which about 30 cm. are occupied by a robust peduncular part, and 

 when in fruit form enormous, elongate, pendulous, grape-like bunches, about 

 70 cm. in length, and about 25 cm. in diameter at their bases, being somewhat 

 less in their apical parts. The flowering branchlets are 20-30 cm. long, very 

 densely and spirally arranged round the main axis, have a distinct callus at 

 their axilla, and are suffulted by a very small bract ; they are sinuous, glabrous, 

 subterete, 3-5 mm. in diameter in their basal part, where they carry 4-5 female 

 flowers only ; are angular but about of the same diameter in their upper two- 

 thirds, where they are deeply serobiculate and densely covered with the male 

 flowers. The scrobiculi are arranged in six longitudinal series, and are not 

 contiguous, those of each series being 2-3 mm. apart from one another, they 

 have their lower margin bracteiform, concave like a swallow's nest, rounded, 

 and projecting horizontally about 1 mm. 



The male flowers appear to be geminate in each scrobicule, from the scars 

 left by their fall, but none remained on the specimen seen by me. 



The female flowers in bud are broadly conical, 8 mm. high (judging from 

 the perianth of the growing ovaries) ; the calyx is almost flat, suborbicular, 

 slightly three-lobed, about 7 mm. in diameter; the corolla is parted nearly 

 down to its base into three very broadly subcordate lobes, which are slightly 

 imbricate at the base, have the margins entire, and triangular, rather acute 

 apexes. The staminodes form a complete cup about as long as the corolla, 

 irregularly and not very deeply three-lobed, the lobes are broadly triangular 

 and occasionally terminated by a rudimentary anther; three of the lobes are 

 very conspicuous between the divisions of the corolla. The pulvinuli of the 

 female flowers are flat, orbicular, 3-5 mm. in diameter and surrounded by the 

 bracts which form a narrow ring, and bear above them the very short pedicels 

 which suffult the two male side flowers. The ovary is covered by silvery 

 appressed hairs, is broadly ovoid with a conical apex terminated by three 

 eireinate stigmas. 



The fruit is spherical, 3 cm. in diameter, very slightly depressed on the 

 apex, where it bears the remains of the stigmas, a very small three-lobed 

 papilla. The outer coating or epicarp of the ripe fruit is thinly crustaceous, 

 brittle, of a yellowish ochraceous color (when dry), almost polished and only 

 rendered very obscurely uneven by minute granules resting under its tissue; 

 the mesocarp is slightly parenchymatous with its inner layer traversed by 

 very minute slenderly filiform, sinuous, much branched fibres, especially 

 numerous near the base. The putamen is somewhat irregularly globose, or 

 else obsoletely trilobed and slightly depressed, 20-22 mm. broad, 18 mm. high ; 

 its surface is of a plumbeous color, uneven, coarsely and slightly pitted; the 



1 



