368 Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 



very numerous, 25-30 cm. long, somewhat swollen at the base, otherwise sub- 

 terete, or slightly flattened, 4-6 mm. thick, and slightly sinuous in their lower 

 third, or fourth, part, where they carry 2-5 female flowers; the part bearing 

 the male flowers is 16-20 cm. long, and about 15 mm. in diameter, when bearing 

 the flowers; its axial part alone is 7 mm. broad, very closely, regularly, and 

 deeply hollowed by rhomboidal alveoli ; each contains one flower only, has 

 narrowly winged margins, and the lower lip protrudes 1-1.5 mm. 



The male flowers are each furnished with a very small triangular bracteole ; 

 their fully developed buds are 7 mm. in length, are oblong, rounded above, 

 and slightly narrowing towards the base ; the calyx is small, the sepals are 

 slightly imbricate at the base, 1.5 mm. long, are membranous with hyaline 

 margins, deltoid, acute, entire or faintly ciliate-denticulate. The corolla is 

 divided down to a little past the middle into three ovate, concave, more or less 

 acute, rather thickly coriaceous segments, each having a callous thickening at 

 its base internally. Stamens six, inserted just at the mouth of the corolla 

 where the segments separate one from the other; the rudimentary ovary is 

 formed by three small elongate bodies placed between the bases of the stamens ; 

 below the insertions of the stamens the body of the corolla is solid and fleshy ; 

 the filaments are terete, subulate, about as long as the segments of the corolla, 

 and with the apex briefly inflected when in the bud ; anthers elongate-rectan- 

 gular, equally rounded at both ends ; during the anthesis the loges remain open 

 and applied one against the other by their backs. (The loges must open when 

 the flowers are still very young, as I have found them in that condition even 

 when the corolla was not yet open.) 



The female flowers have very broad bases and are almost globular, being 

 about 1 cm. high and about as broad; the calyx, on the whole, forms a very 

 narrow ring, and is formed by three sepals, very narrow, semi-circular, with 

 hyaline margins. Petals large, imbricate, suborbicular, three-toothed at the 

 apex, the middle point being rigid, very acute, and almost pungent, the side 

 points are, like the margins, hyaline and irregularly ciliate-toothed ; the 

 staminal urceolum is very short and truncate ; ovary globose-ovoid, narrowing 

 above, densely hairy-hispid from the base to the stigmas; these are circinate. 



Fruit globose, slightly depressed, about 4 cm. in diameter, but apparently, 

 judging from some of the kernels, at times larger; it is 3 cm. high and has a 

 smaU papilliform apical mucro; it has a polished surface, and when dry is 

 of a dirty-yellow color. The epicarp is brittle, two-thirds of a millimeter thick ; 

 the mesocarp in the dry condition is rather soft, adherent to the putamen, 

 almost corky in texture, and without rigid fibres. The putamen is depressedly 

 globose, 25-28 mm. broad, 20-21 mm. high; the pores are about in the middle 

 of the periphery; the surface is uneven, venose-impressed, marked below 

 by three very faint and shallow grooves which radiate from three very 

 small holes placed in the center of the base ; of the upper surface the center is 

 slightly raised and obsoletely apiculate. The wall of the shell is 3-4 mm. 

 thick. Seed usually solitary, but at times two collateral seeds are to be found 

 within the same shell, separated by a woody dissepiment. When the seed is 



