PHILIPPINE PALMS, I. 
221 
A slender palm about 2 m. high (non soboliferous ?) . -Stem 3 cm. in 
diameter. Leaves , judging from the fragment seen by me, about 1 m. 
in length; the petiole rather long, 8-10 mm. thick, finely striate, subterete 
but deeply and rather narrowly furrowed on its upper surface (the 
margins of the furrow very sharp) obsoletely longitudinally keeled under- 
neath, finely striate (when dry) ; the rachis convex beneath with a 
salient angle above and two side facets where the leaflets are attached; 
leaflets rather numerous, thin in texture, membranous-subherbaceous, 
all of about the same breadth, narrowly falcate-sigmoid and unicostate, 
slightly narrowed at the base, and slightly decurrent along the rachis, 
very gradually narrowing upwards into a long linear caudate tip ; the 
mid-costa strong, raised and sharp above ; the secondary nerves numerous, 
causing both surfaces to be finely striate; usually two of the nerves 
on each side of the mid-costa are sligthly stronger than the others, 
especially near the base; the margins sharp slightly strengthened by a 
secondary nerve; the lower leaflets 45 cm. long and 18-25 mm. broad; 
the two apical ones united by their bases into a deeply furcate flabellum ; 
each of them 25 cm. long and about 5 cm. broad, 4-5-costulate, truncate 
and almost prsemorse at the summit and with as many pairs of very 
short and obtuse teeth as there are costse. Spadix erect, densely panieled, 
twice branched, about 20 cm. long, and 12-14 cm. broad, with 10—12 
ascendent-fastigiate main branches which form a dense and broad, 
panicle, almost without a peduncular part, as the lowest branches 
spring from just a little above the insertion of the general spathe. The 
spathe is lanceolate, 24 cm. in length and 4.5 cm. in width, somewhat 
narrowing upwards into an obtuse tip which is ciliate-fringed on the mar- 
gins; main branches 14-15 cm. long divided into 14-15 flexuose fastigiate 
branchlets, which carry, in notches of their rather stout angular base, 
from 2 to 12 female flowers, suddenly becoming very slender, very closely 
and minutely notched in the remaining and longer portion which is 
covered with male flowers. Male -flowers very regularly and closely 
packed together, very distinctly seeund and in pairs at each notch of 
the branchlets, inconspicuously bracteolate, 22-25 mm. long, sigmoid- 
lanceolate, somewhat flattened or 3-gonous, acute-apiculate ; the calyx 
very small, its sepals triangular, acute, sharply keeled; the corolla many 
times longer than the calyx, its petals lanceolate-acuminate, strongly 
striate externally; stamens 6, somewhat shorter than the petals, the 
filaments very short, the anthers narrowly sagittate, acuminate-apiculate, 
the cells almost parallel but.deeply separated at the base; rudimentary 
ovary as long as or a little longer than the stamens, represented by 3 
subulate bodies united only in their basal part. Female flowers broadly 
ovoid; the sepals very broad, twice broader than long, slightly apiculate, 
ciliolate on the margins; the petals a little more than one-third longer 
than the calyx, imbricate and broadened at both sides in their basal part 
