626 
BECCARI. 
a portion of the stem, and an entire leaf from a full-grown plant; it was collected 
by A. Loher at Montalban, Province of Rizal, Luzon, in February, 1908, (No. 7071 
in Herb. Kew. ) . 
It is a scandent and robust species. The sheathed stem is 5 to 6 cm 
in diameter and the naked canes are 2.5 cm thick. The leaf-sheaths are 
rather thick and woody, more or less covered with tobacco-colored, very 
appressed and almost immersed scales, and are strongly gibbous above, 
obliquely truncate at the mouth, which is entire, has a sharp margin and 
is more or less furnished with spines; they are also armed, especially in 
their upper part and above the gibbosity, with rather robust, scattered, 
horizontal, short (5 to 10 mm long) spines, which have a broad base and 
leave on the surface of the sheath a very distinct impression of their 
form; this is concave on the lower and convex on the upper surface; the 
ligule is represented by a short rim inside the mouth of the sheath. The 
leaf is about .2.2 nr long in the pinniferous part and terminates in a 
rather long, very robust cirrus ; the petiolar part is very short, 2.5 cm 
broad at its base, flattish and covered with small, erect prickles above, 
rounded and smooth beneath, its margins more or less prickly; the 
rachis is flattish and also prickly above in its first portion, but higher 
up becomes convex, and towards the extremity has an obtuse, salient 
angle ; beneath it is slightly convex, more or less covered with rusty scales, 
and armed toward the upper extremity of the pinniferous part with at 
first solitary, then ternate, and finally half-whorled very robust claws; on 
their cirrus the half or the three-quarter whorls are regularly spaced 
every 3 to 4 cm. The leaflets are about 30 on each side, rather regularly 
alternate and equidistant, 3 to 6 cm apart, and toward the end even 
more; they are rigidly papyraceous, green, smooth on the nerves and 
concolorous on both surfaces, somewhat concavo-convex, lanceolate or 
elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate, the tip bristly; the medial leaflets are 30 
cm long, or thereabout, and 5 to 7 cm broad ; those of the extremities are 
smaller, all are 5-eostulate, with a few secondary, rather distinct nerves 
interposed between the costae ; transverse veinlets very crowded and 
numerous; the margins spinulous near the base, the spinules gradually 
passing into rigid, spreading hairs near the apex. The spadix is rather 
diffuse, 70 cm in length, slightly nodding, with a rather rigid axis and 
only 4 or 5 partial spreading inflorescenses. The primary spathes are 
tightly sheathing, fugaciously rusty-furfuraceous, elongate-infundibuli- 
form, armed with small, short claws in their upper part; the lower spathe 
is 20 cm long, 18 cm broad at the mouth, flattened, very sharply two- 
edged, entire and obliquely truncate at the mouth, which is fringed with 
small, rusty paleolse, and is produced at one side into a triangular, acutely 
keeled point; the other primary spathes are entire, 10 cm long, narrowing 
toward the base, where they are flat, with sharp margins on the inner 
side, and are prolonged at the apex into a triangular, acutely keeled point. 
The partial inflorescences are 20 to 35 cm in length, have only 3 or 4 
