AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 
OF THE 
STRAITS 
AND 
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 
No. 4.] APRIL, 1903. [Vol. II. 
RATTANS. 
Plate V. 
The Rattans of commerce consist of the woody stems of a va- 
riety of climbing palms belonging to the section Calameae , and to 
the genera Calamus , Dcemonorops, Korthalsia and Plectoeomia', to 
which may be added the less known genera Myrialepis, Plectoco- 
miopsis and Ceralolobus. They are unisexual plants, forming tufts 
of stems some of which attain an enormous length. The leaves are al- 
ways pinnate, with broad and narrow leaflets, often hairy, and armed 
with recurved hooks on the back of the midrib, which is in many 
case* prolonged into a leafless veryt horny portion, the flagellum by 
which the plant climbs. In a certain set of rattans 'the flagellum is not 
a portion v f a leaf, but an independent organ rising from the axil of 
a sheath and apparently an abortive flower spike. The stem of the 
plant is covered with leafsheaths, armed strongly with sharp flat- 
tened thorns. 
The inflorescence varies in form according to the genus. 
In Calamus, it is usually long pendulous and much branched with 
tubular spathes, sometimes prolonged into a limb. 
In Doemonorops the inflorescence is much more short and com- 
pact, with large usually spiny boatshaped bracts quite covering up 
the flowers at first, and later falling off altogether. 
In these rattans the stems go on flowering for a long time pro- 
ducing one inflorescence after another from the axils of the leaves. 
In Korthalsia and Plectoeomia the inflorescence is terminal, or 
rather produced all at once from the top joints of the stem, the 
whole stem dying to the ground when the fruits have been pro- 
duced. The Korthals’as are peculiar in having the leaves trapezi- 
form or at least narrowed at the base and widest at the top, and 
usually white beneath, and some have a large boatshaped sheath 
just above the leaf stalk (the ocrea) which is usually perforated 
and used as a nest by ants, whence they are known as “ Rotan 
Semut.” Plectoeomia is an enormous plant, the stem of which is 
narrow at the base and thickens as it develops upwards. It is cer- 
tainly the bulkiest rattan we have and attains a vast length, rlirnh- 
ing to the tops of the highest trees and often by its great weight it 
pulls off branches and breaks down small trees by its long flagella, 
VG. 
