1. Pistillate and staminate members are indistinguishable without opening the protective prophyll . 2. This structure is called the perigynium or utricle, a modified prophyll . 3. The prophyll may or may nor be armed and eventually develops a longitudinal split, exposing the flowers. 4. The prophyll is large, splitting and becoming tattered, and armed with pseudo-whorls of black spines. 5. The peduncle is long and the prophyll short and tubular, disintegrating into a fibrous mass at the base. 6. There are four to five peduncular bracts, longer than the prophyll , with the distalmost exceeding the peduncle. 7. The short peduncle is waxy and covered in hairs, the enclosing prophyll is similarly covered, two keeled and beaked. 8. Prophylls 5, lanceolate, the margins spiny and bristly, about 1 cm ( 0.3 inches ) long.9. Plants are monoecious : with inflorescences up to 1.2 m long, erect among the leaves; prophylls and peduncles are not known. 10. In pistillate members it is branched to two orders, staminate to three; in both, a boat shaped, beak-ended prophyll encloses it.
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