The primitive form resembles that of the preceding family. In it we find the typical, perfectly developed, Monocotyledonous flower, sometimes even with free carpels and with a dry or somewhat fleshy, but never petaloid perianth; and this passes over into very different forms by the suppression of the floral-leaves, perianth and sporophylls (unisexual flowers are common), and by the close aggregation of the flowers in the inflorescence. The flower is _hypogynous_ in every case. The inflorescence is a _spike_ which may be either single or branched, and has often a thick and fleshy axis (a _spadix_). In Palms and Araceæ it is enveloped, at any rate prior to the opening of the flowers, by a very large floral-leaf, _the spathe_, which may be petaloid (Figs. 297, 301). The fruit is most frequently fleshy (_berry_, _drupe_) or a _nut_, never a capsule. The embryo is small, with large, fleshy endosperm (Fig. 299 _C_); very rarely the endosperm is wanting. [Illustration: FIG. 295.--Piassava (_Attalea funifera_).] [Illustration: FIG. 296.--A portion of the stem of _Attalea funifera_ with persistent leaf-bases.] The numerous plants belonging to this family are large, herbaceous or tree-like, and the leaves seldom have the usual Monocotyledonous form, _i.e._ linear with parallel venation, but most frequently have pinnate or palmate venation. Order 1. =Palmæ (Palms).= The majority are trees with an _unbranched_, cylindrical _stem_, having short internodes and covered with leaf-scars or the bases of the leaf-stalks (Fig. 296), and at the summit a rosette of large leaves closely packed together (Fig. 295). An exception to this is found in _Calamus_ (Cane, “Rotang”), whose thin, creeping or climbing stems have long internodes; sparsely[28] branched is, _e.g._ the African Doum-palm (_Hyphæne_). Notwithstanding their often enormous stems the Palms have fibrous roots, like the bulbous Monocotyledons. The leaves are pinnate (Feather-palms, Fig. 298) or palmate (Fan-palms, Fig. 295) and often very large; they have a well-developed petiole with an _amplexicaul sheath_, which is often more or less separated into a large number of fibres. _In the bud the blade is entire but folded_, as the leaf expands the lines of folding are torn, either those which are turned upwards (thus ∨ ∨ ∨ ∨, _e.g. Pritchardia_, _Livistona_, _Phœnix_, _Chamærops_) or those turned downwards (thus ∧ ∧ ∧ ∧, _e.g. Cocos_, _Chamædorea_, _Calamus_). The inflorescence is usually lateral; when, as in Sago-palm (_Metroxylon rumphii_) or Talipot (_Corypha umbraculifera_) it is terminal, the plant is monocarpic, and dies after flowering; it is often a very _large_ and _branched spadix_ with numerous flowers either borne externally or embedded in it, and enclosed either in one woody, boat-shaped _spathe_ (Fig. 297) or several spathes, in the latter case one for each branch. The flowers are sessile or even embedded, regular, generally