•252 ANNALS OP THE EOYAL BOTANIC G^iBDEN, CALCUrrA. ^Q, pygmCBUS.
HABITAT.—Borneo in Sarawak: on the hills near the sea at Bintulu, Beccari P. B.
No. 3698.
OBSERVATIONS.—The species is founded on a specimen of an entire leaf and a
female spadix in flower. Its affinities are not obvious. It would appear to approach
•C. hacularin, and like this I suppose it an erect and not a climbing species on account
of its non-cirriferous leaf and the form of the leaf-sheaths which are not gibbous,
not tubular but widely open on the ventral side and gradually passing into the
petiole. Provisionally I have placed it amongst the anomalous species of Group IV.
PLATE 85.—Calamus myriacanthus Becc. Leaf-shoath; an intermediate portion of a
leaf (lower surface); the summit of the same leaf; basilar portion o£ a male spadix
•with an entire partial inflorescence.—From Beccari, P. B, No. 3698.
70. OALAMDS PYGM.-BUS Becc. Malesia, iii, 62, and Rec. Bot. Surv. Ind. ii, 20-5.
DESCRIPTION.—Not scandent, very small and delicate. Stem very short, tiorulose,
creeping and rooting, 7-8 mm. ia diam,, its internodes excessively short and
covered by the remains of the old leaves, the summit ascending. Leaf-sheaths not
flagelliferous, not or very shortly tubular at the base, amplectent and open on
the ventral side, gradually passing into the petiole, armed with flat, small, 4-7
mm. long, deflexed tawny spines, which are very often approximate by their bases
and subsetiate. Ocrea short, liguliform, at first fringed-furfuraceous at the
margins, ultimately naked and deciduous. Leaves not cirriferous, 45-50 cm. in
length, including the rather long (16-18 cm.) petiole; this subterete but narrowly
channelled above, armed, mainly near the base and beneath, along the middle, with
few, straight, horizontal, 5-6 mm. long spines; rachis quite unarmed, covered when
young with brown, fugacious, woolly-furfuraceous indumentum, rounded beneath,
acutely bifaced above; leaflets numerous (20-30 on each side), very closely and
regularly equidistant or pectinately set, mostly opposite near the base, alternate
upwards, inserted at an angle of 45°, thin in texture but rigidulous, brownish and
dull when dry, concolorous on both surfaces, linear-lanceolate, slightly narrowed at
the base, gradually acuminate into a rather densely setose ciliate apex; the midcosta
(rather strong) and one secondary nerve on each side of it spinulous above;
beneath, the mid-costa alone sparingly spinulous; all leaflets of about one size, the
largest 10-12 cm, in length and 6-8 ram. wide, only few near the base and
those near the summit slightly smaller; the two of the terminal pair quite free at
the base. Male spadix filiform, very long and delicate, with very few (2) partial
inflorescences of which the lowest supradecompound, the uppermost simply decompound;
primary and secondary spathes and spikelets as in the female spadix hereafter
described; spathels tubular as in the female spikelets; involucre cupular
laterally attached to the base of the spathel above its own, acutely bidentate on
the Bide next the axis. Male flowers very small, hardly 2 mm. long; calyx strongly
veined, divided down to the middle into 3 broad acute lobes; corolla with acute
segments, twice as long as the calyx. Female spadix, relatively to the size of the
plant, excessively long (1-1-8 m.), filiform, terete, very slender, 2 mm. in diam. at
C. batbatus.'] BECCAEI. MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS CALAMUS. 253
most, ending in a very slender smooth filiform appendix; primary spathes excessively
narrow, very strictly sheathing, cylindraceous throughout, obliquely truncate at
the mouth and produced at one side into a short triangular or lanceolate point;
partial inflorescences very few (2-3), very distant and very delicate, lax, spreading,
10-12 cm. long, with very few (4-t) in all) spikelets; secondary spathes strictly
sheathing, tubular, slightly clavate, smooth, obliquely truncate and naked at the
mouth, obsolctely apiculate on one side; spikelets filiform, zig-zag sinuous, l ' o - 3 cm.
long, horizontally inserted above the mouth of thoir own spat he, conspicuously
callous in their upper axilla, witli very few (2-3) flowers on each side; spathels
tubular, uncommonly elongate, slightly enlarged above, strongly striately veined,
truncate and apiculate at one side at the mouth; involucrophorum laterally attached
to the base of the spathel above its own, shallow and irregularly cupular with an
axillary callus next the axis; involucre irregularly cupular, strongly veined; areola
of the sterile flower rather large and more or less depressedly lunate. Female flowers
very small (hardly 2 mm. long), relatively very remote C3-4 mm. apart). Fruiting
perianth not pedicelliform, its calyx split almost to the base into 3 very broad
' apiculate lobes, those slightly shorter than the segments of the corolla. Fruit very
small (immature 6 mm. long), broadly ovate with a conical top; scales in 12 series,
shining, convex, not channelled along the middle, light-yellowish, bordered by a
broad chocolate-brown band which extends to the erosely toothed tip. Seed not
eeen perfectly ripe.
HABITAT.—Borneo ; On Mount Mattang, near Kuching in Sarawak Beccari (P. B.
No. 1924).
OBSERVATIONS.—This is perhaps the smallest species of the genus; though nearly
stemless and devoid of the usual organs of climbing, the very slender and long
spadices raise themselves amongst the shrubs by means of the small divaricate
spikelets acting as rigid hooks.
PtATE 86.—Calamus pygm^us Becc. The entire female plant with a detached
male spadix, from No. 1924 of the P. B. in Herb. Becc.
71. CALAMUS BAEBATUS Zipp. in Bijdr. Nat. Wet. v, 178; Machlot in Bull.
Sc. Nat. xxiv, 67; Mart. Hist. Nat. Palm, iii (1st edit.) 213; Kunth
Enum. PI. iii, 218; Miq. De Palmis, 29; H. Wendl. in Kerch. Les
Palm. 235;
Dcemonorops harbatus Bl. Rumphia Hi, 42 (excl. Rottang actdum Eumph.) t.
145; Mart. 1. c., 330; Miq. PI. Ind. Bat. iii, 100; Walp. Ann. iii,
480, and v, 829; Becc. Malesia, i, 87, 96.
DESCRIPTION.—Scandent, sheathed stem as thick as a finger. Loaf-sheaths flagclliferous,
not gibbous above (always?), gradually passing into the petiole, covered with
a grey ochraceous scurf when young, open upwards on the ventral side, where densely
covered near the margins with long erect rigid bristles of a reddish-brown colour,
these intermingled with some slender subulate spines; the remainder (the greatest part)