Modkcca is an Indian word forming a member of 

 the appellations under which two or three congeners of our 

 plant appear in the Hortns Malabaricus; and has been 

 adopted as a generic title in the Encyclopedic Botanique of 

 Lamarck, where the genus was first recorded. We are not 

 aware why the group has been wholly passed over in all the 

 general systematic enumerations of plants; nor why it has 

 not found a place in the Hortns Kewensis, as the present 

 species was introduced many years ago by the late Lady 

 Amelia Hume, and has continued to be cultivated from that 

 time in the hothouse at Wormleybury, from whence, through 

 the kindness of Sir Abraham Hume, we were supplied with 

 the specimen for the annexed drawing. 



The character at the head of the article is by Mr. Brown, 

 and comprises the six species already observed, viz. 3 in the 

 East Indies, 1 in New Holland by Mr. Brown, and two in 

 Sierra Leone, of which the present is one. 



Our sample belonged to the barren-flowered side of the 

 species, which is dioicous ; as that which afforded the figure 

 to Jacquin, did, we have no doubt, to the fertile-flowered 

 side. .... 



^ ■ 



(Barren plant.) Perennial: branches herbaceous, sar- 

 mentose. Leaves membranous, oblongly or roundly cor- 

 date, nearly entire or divided into 3-5- and sometimes 

 partly into 7, lobes, opaque at the upper side shining at the 

 tinder, 5-nerved; lobes pointed: petiole about 3 times shorter, 

 with two glandular oblately ovate fleshy earlets at the top, 

 each of which is hollow underneath, with a white glossy 

 eye-like oozing gland in the centre of the cavity. Peduncles 

 cirrhose, stiff, elastic, axillary bearing a corymb of several 

 flowers at the upper part, beyond which they are spirally 

 coiled and prehensile. Flowers fragrant: calyx yellowish 

 green, urceolately campanulate, oblong, 5-cleft for about \ 

 of its length, segments of the limb ovately pointed recurved* 

 3 outer ones with a finely fringed edge, two inner plain. 

 Corolla enclosed in the tube of the calyx, greenish, upright, 

 5-petalled: petals narrow, spatulately lanceolate, with a 

 short thick fleshy unguis, a lanceolately. elongated attenuated 

 blade with a fringed border. Nectary of five small green 

 pits forming a circle at the bottom of the flower. 



