derived from the medicinal virtue of the flowers, of which, 
according to Browne, a tincture is formed by infusion in 
wine or spirits, used in the leeward parts .of the island for 
the same purposes as Laudanum, having the reputation of 
being a safe narcotic. 
A perennial villous plant; stem slender, weak, of a red- 
dish hue, herbaceous, but Jacquin says”not annual, climb- 
ing to the height of 10-15 feet. Leaves distant, pliant, 
covered with a soft-pubescence; at-the lower half broadly 
cordate, at the upper truncafe with a crescent-shaped in- 
cisure, between the two acuminate lobes which form the 
"horns of the sinus an incipient. third one often appears 
with a small mucro, this is rounded and broader than long; 
«petioles short and flexile. Flowers solitary, of distinct co- 
Hours, but so combined as to afford the appearance of a 
uniform dull red, about.an inch and half over, villous and 
streaked on the outside, nearly scentless; peduncle pliant 
and slackened, the inner rank of the rays of the crown 
being very small and masked by the outer, is easily over- 
looked ou slight inspection. Germen clothed by a dense 
silky pile. . Fruit, from which the specific name is taken, 
‘is described as of a dingy red colour, pubescent, sometimes 
nearly of the size and form of an olive, sometimes spherical, 
‘sometimes ovate, with six external parallel equidistant lon- 
gitudinal ridges, more or less raised; when ripe, accofding 
to Jacquin, it sometimes separates at the top into six valves. 
Rind thick, coriaceous and white within. Seeds black. 
` Near akin to the PassreLora capsularis of Linnaeus, 
which Mr. Dryander believes to be the same with the 
punctata of Miss Lawrance's drawings of the plants of this 
genus; but distinct from the capeuiaris of Miller, which 
appears by his own specimen in the Banksian Herbarium to 
be à mere variety of oblongata. In the Hortus. Kewensis 
rubra is stated to have been: cultivated by Miller, on the 
presumption it was his capsularis; but his own specimen 
showing he had a different plant in view, the authority is 
irrelevant. : ' | m 
The drawing was made from a plant which flowered 
late in tlie autumn, in the stove at Messrs. Whitley, Brames, 
and Milne's nursery, Parson's Green, near Fulham. 
a A ray of the outer row of the crown, ô The inner row of minute ; 
s The nectary, d The partition between that and the receptacle “ thg 
