from the mout h of the feux as there. The excrescences which 

 are seen on the stem, especially near the knots where the 

 leaves issne, and which have been usually held to be spines, 

 seem to us in both varieties mere sprouting radicles, such as 

 are met with in other plants that grow along the ground as 

 this sometimes does. In the Banksian Herbarium there is a 

 specimen of our variety, which had flowered in some collec- 

 tion in this country many years ago, 



A smooth annual plant. Siem sometimes twining, some- 

 times sarmentose, reddish. Leaves broadly cordate or 

 sometimes variously angular, acuminated, with longishlv 

 tapered mucronate points, from 3 to 5 inches long ; petiole 

 nearly of the same length, firm. Peduncles axillary, thick, 

 short, 1-3-flowered; pedicles fleshy clavately thickened, 

 thickening with the gi-owth fruit, and ultimately refracted 

 together with that, bearing generally a small clos^-pressed 

 bracte at the base. Oifya? many times shorter than the 

 tube; leaflets ovately lanceolate, converging, fleshy along 

 the middle with a sharp keel, sides widish, membmnous, 

 acuminate. Corolla hypocrateriform ; tube 2-4 inches long, 

 ending in a shorter rather wider faux , together with which it 

 is as long again as the limb; limb from 2 to 4 inches in 

 diameter, nearly flat, very shallowly 5-lobed, lobes broadly 

 tapered mucronate. Stamens either rising a little above the 

 mouth of the faux, or remaining within it. Stigma capitate, 

 granular, slightly 4-cleft. Capsule bilocular, 4-seeded., 



The drawing was taken from a sample which flowered in 

 Mr. Herbert's hothouse at Spoffbrth. Both varieties are 

 natives of the West Indies. The white one, of Carolina and 

 Geor^a as well as the W^t Indies. 



