A genus proposed some years ago by ourselves in Curtis's 

 Magazine (1063) under the present name, and afteiwards 

 (as a comparison of dates will show) by M. Richard by that 

 of Fluggea, changed by M. Desvaux, at a still later period, 

 into Slateria. Neither of these botanists appeai-s, however, 

 to have been aware that the present species should have 

 been included in his genus; but has relied npon japonicus 

 alone for the character. 



The synonym from the " Flora Cochinchinensis" was 

 kindly communicated by Mr. Brown, who has ascertained 

 it from the original sample in the Herbarium of the Museum 

 of Natui-al History at Paris ; where a portion of Loureiro's 

 Botanical Collection had found its way from Lisbon during 

 the pillage of the late ware. The same attentive observer 

 has likewise been enabled to trace the true nature of the 

 fruit in native samples. 



In O. japonicus the fruit has been described as a blue 

 berry of an ovoid subglobular form, 3-celled, with few 

 or sometimes solitaiy seeds, and particularized by Richard 

 as having a tabulated remnant at the top. In spicafus, the 

 one before us, Mr. Brown has found the fruit to be of the 

 kind he has ascribed to Peliosanthes Teta, in the twelfth 

 volume of the Linnsean Transactions. " In this monoco- 

 " tyledonous plant," we quote his text, " the germen co- 

 " heres with the tube of the perianthium or corolla, and 

 " has originally 3 cells, each containing 2 ovula. Soon 

 " after the pollen has been shed, from one to three of these 

 ovula rapidly increase in size, by their pressure prevent 

 the development of the others, and rupture the germen, 

 which remains but little enlarged at the base of the fruit, 

 *' consisting of from one to three berrylike seeds." Now, as 

 it is impossible to separate the two species generically, the 

 general coincidence, both in character and habit, being ob- 

 viously paramount to any particular difference in the fruit, 

 we must either conclude that there is some mistake in the 

 description of that of japonicus and that a berried seed 

 has been taken for a berried capsule, or else that the differ- 

 ence between these two kinds of fruit is of little influence in 

 regard to the modification of the rest of the plant, and pos- 

 sibly not even constant. 



Native of Nepal, Cochinchina, China, and Japan. In- 

 troduced last year by the Horticultural Society. Flowered 

 in their conservatory at Hammersmith in October. The 

 fruit, in the native samples we have seen, appears (when 

 dry at least) of a dark violet blue. 



(C 



