FLOWER IX TJIE OK>'US XAPOLEOXA, ETC. 499 



both in the description and in the drawing. The corolla is repre- 

 sented as spreading horizontally ; and, perhaps from the drawing 

 having been taken from dried and therefore flattened specimens, 

 the corona, or, as Palisot de Beauvois calls it, the inner corolla, is 

 represented as spreading horizontally like the corolla and as being 

 of the same blue colour. The stamens are described and figured 

 as five in number " singula biantherifera," tlie anthers two-celled, 

 though the figures resemble one-celled anthers. The stigma is 

 mentioned in the following terms, which would apply equally well 

 to the living plant, " Stigma complanatum,pcltatum, antheras ob- 

 tegens, quinqueangulare, angulis medio sulcatis, stellam marinam 

 [^Asterias] sequantibus." The fruit is said to be a many-seeded 

 unilocular berry, with the seeds imbedded in pulp ; but the draw- 

 ing rather show^s a free central placenta bearing an indefinite 

 number of ovules ! The chief points in which this differs from 

 the cultivated plant are the absence of the first ring of the corona, 

 evidently by mistake, the spreading direction of the second (perhaps 

 also an error of the artist), and the arrangement of the stamens, 

 which, however, is a point that, as I have before mentioned, might 

 easily be considered correct from a superficial examination. The 

 blue colour is probably the result of an error of memory, coupled 

 as it is with "un reflet violet" and with Whitfield's statement of 

 the bluish colour w^hicli his flowers had when drying. Jussieu, who 

 saw Palisot de Beavois's original specimens and compared them 

 with those gathered by Heudelot, considered the latter distinct, 

 and published the species as iV. Ileudelotii in 1844 (Ann. Sc. 

 Nat. ser. 3. vol. ii. p. 223, t. 4), though the only points of distinction 

 that he lays down are the solitary axillary flowers of a reddish 

 purple colour in the one case, as contrasted with the tufted blue 

 flowers of Palisot de Beauvois's plant. Jussieu describes the outer 

 corona, which Palisot de Beauvois had overlooked. He considers 

 the lobes of the second corona to alternate with those of the first, 

 a position which may be theoretically true, but which I have tried 

 in vain to verify in the cultivated plant, wherein I find that the 

 number of the outer segments is too irregular to allow of their 

 relative position being satisfactorily ascertained. The fourth or 

 stamiual whorl Jussieu describes as of the same fonn as the pre- 

 ceding, with which it is fused at the base, but elsewhere is distinct, 

 " et decoupee axiperieurement en cinq parties, dont chacune sou- 

 tient seulement deux antheres ovoides, oblongues, uniloculaires, 

 quoiqu'elle soit parcourue par un plus grand nombre de ner- 



