Hem con ia belongs to the small tropical order of Musm, 

 and differs from the genus Mcsa, which includes the Plan- 

 tain and Banana Trees, in having all the flowers fertile, and 

 no mixture of barren ones as there. Stremtzia, the mag- 

 nificent group of which all the known species have been 

 recently illustrated with unprecedented skill and splendour 

 in the " STRELITZIA DEPICTA" of Mr. Francis Bauer, 

 is another co-ordinate genus. 



The present species is found wild in moist shady spots 

 on the west-indian mountains; and was introduced by 

 Mr. A. Anderson in 1786. The drawing was taken at 

 the nursery of Messrs. Loddiges* at Hackney, where it is 

 cultivated in a hothouse, which is both warmed and irri- 

 gated by means of steam. 



A large herbaceous plant, 10 feet high. Leaves radical, 

 long-petioled, oblong, narrowed at each end, entire, marked 

 with parallel nerves, upright, standing together, quite 

 smooth: petioles as long or longer than the blade, round, 

 thick, channelled at the upper side. Scape upright, the 

 height of the petioles, round, thick, smooth. Spadix 

 simple, upright. General spathes several (8-10), alternate, 

 rigid, cordate, clasping, uprightly spreading, acuminate, 

 distich, yellow-brown. Flowers subsessile, of a pale or 

 greenish yellow, fascicled, embosomed in the separate 

 spathes, and parted by whitish membranous partial spathes 

 of the same length as themselves. Corolla three-petaled ; 

 cohering at the base, unequal, bent in opposite directions, 

 and as if bilabiate: 2 upper petals lanceolate, pointed, a 

 little reflex at the tip, converging below the middle, and 

 towards the base united with the lower petal? lower petal 

 hardly longer than the upper ones, lanceolate, concave, 

 clasping the hinder part of the nectary by the base, tip 

 slightly recurvate, entire long-pointed. Nectary of two 

 pieces : the hinder piece of the length of the corolla, broadly 

 lanceolate, concave, ventricose underneath below the middle, 

 three-cleft at the top, enclosing the filaments by the mem- 

 branous convergent inbent edges of the sides, nectariferous 

 at the bottom : front piece very minute, lanceolate, adnate 

 to the front petal. Filaments nearly of the length of the 

 corolla, united below the middle into tubes which open in 

 front, adhering to the hinder piece of the nectary, filiform s 

 anthers linear, pointed, bilocular, yellow, often twisted 

 spirally. 



