Leaves 30′—36′ in diameter, thin, light green, divided only to the middle, the divisions of the primary lobes 3½′—9′ long; petioles thin, gradually tapering from the base, 40′—60′ in length, armed throughout with stout straight or incurved teeth. Flowers: spadix 4°—6° long; flowers ⅛′—⅙′ long, with a light chestnut-brown calyx and a pale yellow-green corolla. Fruit ¼′ in diameter.
A tree with numerous stems, in Florida sometimes 10 metres high, forming great thickets.
Distribution. Dade County, Florida, from the rear of Madeira Hummock to Cape Sable, in swamps of fresh or brackish water at some distance from the coast; also in Cuba and on the Bahamas.
2. [Acœlorraphe arborescens] Becc.
Serenoa arborescens Sarg.
Leaves about 2° in diameter, light yellow-green on the upper surface, blue-green or glaucescent on the lower surface, divided nearly to the base into numerous lobes slightly thickened at the pale yellow midribs and margins; petioles 18′—24′ long, armed, except toward the apex, with stout flattened curved orange-colored teeth. Flowers: spadix 3°—4° long, with a slender much-flattened stalk, panicled lower branches 18′—20′ in length, and 6—8 thick firm pale green conspicuously ribbed spathes dilated at apex into a narrow border; flowers with a light chestnut-brown calyx and a pale yellow-green corolla. Fruit globose, ⅓′ in diameter; seed somewhat flattened below, with a pale vertical mark on the lower side, and a hilum joined to the micropyle by a pale band.
A tree, from 30°—40° high, with 1 or several clustered erect inclining or occasionally semiprostrate stems 3′—4′ in diameter, covered almost to the ground by the closely clasping bases of the leaf-stalks and below with a thick pale rind.
Distribution. Low undrained soil covered for many months of every year in water from 1′—18′ deep, occasionally occupying almost exclusively areas of several acres in extent or more often scattered among Cypress-trees or Royal Palms, in the swamps and along the hummocks adjacent to the Chokoloskee River and its tributaries and at the head of East River, Whitewater Bay, in southwestern Florida.