65 <div type=
"description"><p>Clustered, spiny, high-climbing, hapaxanthic, hermaphroditic, rattan palms. Stem sometimes branching aerially, eventually becoming bare, with long internodes, circular in cross-section, sucker shoots apparently axillary. Leaf pinnate with a cirrus; sheath strictly tubular, variously armed with scattered spines and abundant caducous indumentum; ocrea conspicuous, split opposite the leaf, scarcely sheathing, sometimes slightly inflated with inrolled edges and ant-infested, unarmed or armed like the sheath; knee absent; petiole present, usually armed with scattered or grouped spines abaxially and along margins, and frequently indumentose, rarely unarmed; rachis armed like the petiole; cirrus armed with reflexed spines and bearing neat pairs of reflexed acanthophylls; leaflets few to very numerous,
1–
4-fold, entire, linear to sigmoid, regularly or irregularly arranged, often fiercely armed with short spines along the margins and the main ribs, midribs prominent adaxially, transverse veinlets conspicuous or inconspicuous. Inflorescences produced simultaneously in the axils of the most distal few frequently reduced leaves, branched to
1 order; peduncle enclosed within the leaf sheath and emerging from its mouth or bursting through the sheath, not adnate to the internode, ± hemispherical in cross-section; prophyll strictly tubular,
2-keeled, enclosed within the leaf sheath; peduncular bracts
1–
3; rachis longer than the peduncle; rachis bracts distichous, strictly tubular with a triangular limb, without spines, sparsely indumentose, becoming tattered, each subtending a pendulous or spreading rachilla; rachilla prophyll tubular,
2-keeled, included within the subtending bract, rachilla bracts distichous, tubular with apiculate, triangular limb, striate, sparsely indumentose, the margin sometimes ciliate, each, except sometimes for the basal
1–
2, subtending a flower cluster. Flowers very rarely borne in triads, usually in dyads, sometimes solitary towards the tips of the rachillae, the flower cluster bearing a tubular
2-keeled prophyll and
0,
1, or
2,
2-keeled bracteoles (depending on the number of flowers); calyx slightly to strongly stalk-like at the base, often bent at right angles, incompletely divided distally into
3 triangular striate lobes; corolla tubular at the very base, divided above into
3 oblong, narrow, triangular, valvate lobes; stamens
6, borne at the very base of the corolla, filaments distinct, much swollen, angular, scarcely narrowed at the connective, anthers medifixed, oblong, latrorse; gynoecium tricarpellate, triovulate, ovary covered with scales, those at the base of the style minute, spine-like, style elongate,
3-angled, stigma minute, pyramidal, ovules basally attached, anatropous. Pollen ellipsoidal, bi-symmetric; aperture a distal sulcus; ectexine tectate, finely to coarsely perforate, or rugulate-reticulate, aperture margin finer; infratectum columellate; longest axis
37–
75 µm [
4/
5]. Fruit
1-seeded (?always), tipped with the base of the style, the rest of the style usually breaking off early in fruit development, the perianth whorls persistent; epicarp covered in vertical rows of reflexed scales with fringed margins, mesocarp fleshy and sweet at maturity, endocarp not differentiated. Seed attached subbasally at one side, ovoid and laterally flattened, or rounded and deeply scalloped, with a very shallow to very deep lateral pit, seed coat apparently sometimes fleshy, endosperm homogeneous; embryo lateral, opposite the pit. Germination adjacent-ligular; eophyll bifid. Cytology not studied.
</p></div>
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