16 DR. M. T. MASTERS ON THE FLORAL CONFORMATION 
of Presl the very similar designation of Byrsanthes. Bentham 
and Hooker*, however, keep up the original designation of 
Guillemin, expressly stating that they have no personal ac- 
quaintance with the genus in question, and copying the charac- 
ters assigned to it from Endlieher, who, in his turn, probably 
availed himself of the original description of Guillemin. Guille- 
min founded the genus on a specimen which he considered iden- 
tical with a plant briefly alluded to, but not named or fully 
described, by Robert Brown. This conjecture I believe to be in- 
correct; and it is with a view of rectifying this error that I ven- 
ture to lay before the Society the present communication, in 
which I shall also allude to the structural arrangement of the 
andreecium. 
Brown’s original notice of the plant was founded on a speci- 
men gathered in Congo by Christian Smith, and is couched in 
the following terms +:—“ In the collection from Congo a plant 
occurs, evidently allied, and perhaps referable to, Homalium, 
from which it differs only in the greater number of glands alter- 
nating with the stamina, whose fasciculi are in consequence de- 
composed, the inner stamen of each fasciculus being separated 
from the outer by one of the additional glands, This plant was 
first found on the banks of the Gambia by Mr. Park, from whose 
specimens 1 have ascertained that the embryo is enclosed in a 
fleshy albumen." 
Here, then, we have the plant first noted by our illustrious 
compatriot, and also the circumstance that the plant in question 
is indigenous in the region of the Congo and the Gambia, two 
widely separated districts. Guillemin's figure and description 
were taken from a plant collected in Senegal by Heudelot. Act- 
ing on the conviction that the specimen gathered by the last- 
mentioned collector belonged to the same species as that alluded 
to by Brown, Guillemin described it fully, figured it, and gave 
it the name of Byrsanthus Brownii. 
The examination of the specimens collected by Chr. Smith, 
and comparison with the figure and description given by the 
French botanists, lead me to infer that we have to deal with two 
distinet species, and, further, that the plant of Guillemin is nob 
the same as the one mentioned incidentally by Brown. The prin- 
cipal points of distinction are to be found in the circumstances that 
* Gen. Pl. i. p. 800. 
+ R. Brown in Tuckey’s Congo, Miscell. Works, ed. Bennett, vol. i. p. 120. 
