AGRICULTURAL BULLETIN 
OF THE 
STRAITS 
AND 
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 
No. 8.] AUGUST, 1907. [Vol. VI. 
PANDANS. 
The order Pandanaceoe includes only two or three genera. 
Freycinetia , climbing plants, Sararanga, a strange plant of the 
Polynesian Islands and the large genus Pandanus of which we 
give a photograph of a very fine specimen in the Botanic Gardens, 
Singapore, viz. Pandanus Kaida. The. plant figured is about ten 
years old, and is a native of India, and is the finest specimen in 
the Gardens, though there are others older, owing to its position 
on the island where its roots have freer access to the water. 
The Pandani are trees or shrubs with branched stems, which 
emit conspicuous stout stilt roots, furnished with a very distinct 
root-cap, by means of which roots the rather weak stem supports 
itself, and as in many cases the branches emit roots also some 
species branching low, form eventually a dense forest or thicket of 
stems almost impenetrable. Pandatms labvrinthicus cultivated in 
the Economic Gardens has thus formed a huge mass of vegetation 
impossible to penetrate. The stems of these plants are occasionally 
somewhat hard outside, and often armed with small thorny processes, 
suppressed rootlets but are softer inside as is the way of monocotyle- 
donous trees, and as they quickly decay when cut, the stems are 
practically useless. The leaves are long and narrow, linear, stiff and 
end in a short or long point. They are armed in nearly all species 
with short pale or dark coloured thorns along the midrib and edges. 
The leaves are the most useful part of the plants, being used for 
roofing, under the name of attaps, and for covering of oxcarts 
known as kajangs. The trees are unisexual, the male flowers 
being borne on different plants from the females. And usually the 
males are extremely rare in proportion to the female plants. In 
hundreds of plants of Pandanus parvus, and of P. ornatus I have 
only once come across a male plant, while in many species the 
males are quite unknown. The male flowers are borne in white 
catkins often several together, and subtended by long white bracts, 
leaves shortened and white but otherwise similar to the other 
leaves. They are borne on the ends of the branches among the 
terminal leaves and hang down from between them. They are 
