COLLECTED IN E. TROPICAL AFRICA. 



479 



acknowledged as the true centre of several Asiatic trees and 

 plants, including Borassus and the Tamarind. 





. i * 



- 



Remarks by Professor Oliver. 



Dr. Kirk's specimens differ from Hibiscus rosa-sinensis as we 

 have it in cultivation and in herbaria, in the all but entire sup- 

 pression of the involucre, the bracts of which are either obsolete 

 or scarcely 1 line in length ; in the narrower and more tubular 

 calyx, the limb of which is spathaceously two- to three-lobed; in the 

 deep bipinnation of the widely spreading one-sided petals, the 

 ultimate segments of which are 1-2 lines in breadth ; and in the 

 extreme tenuity of the long staminal column. One of Dr. Kirk's 

 specimens is in fruit, the capsule, apparently scarcely mature, 

 being oblong, apiculate, with a thin, almost papery, scabrid-pube- 

 rulous pericarp, about twice the length of the persistent calyx, 

 which, in this specimen, is at length split to the base. The seeds 

 are rounded and minutely furfuraceous, with faint indication of 

 short setae. 



Fig. 2. 



Kg. 1. 



Hifmcus 



indicated 



ertical 



una 



Hibiscus 



H*lf* JOURX. — BOTANY, VOL. XV. 



ginal 



2k 



