The name Schweiggeria was originally given by Sprengel 
to a Brazilian shrub, of which he examined specimens in a 
dried state, and described in his usual unskilful manner. 
At a later period Von Martius, not recognizing the genus by 
the former author’s character, called it Glossarrhen, from 
yAooon, a tongue, and appev, a male, in allusion to the pro- 
cesses which proceed from the front anthers, see fig. 1. and 
which look very like the rolled up tongue of a butterfly. 
The right of priority, however, requires that the first name 
should be preserved. 
The only two species are bushes inhabiting Brazil; one 
of them in mountainous places, and woods in the province of 
St. Paul’s; the other, which is now figured, in wet shady 
stony places near the river Itahype in the province of Bahia. 
They are very nearly Violets; but differ in having a calyx 
whose divisions are extremely unequal, three being large and 
heart-shaped at the base, but not decurrent, the other two 
being very small and enclosed within the others. The stigma 
too has a different form from that of Viola. 
_ Our drawing was made in the nursery of Messrs. Lod- 
diges, who imported the species. It is a stove shrub, re- 
quiring the same kind of cultivation as Ixoras and plants of 
that description. 
Fig. 1. represents the apparatus in the interior of the 
flower ; that is to say, the stamens with their membranous 
appendages, and the two tongue-shaped processes, and the tip 
of the style surmounted by a two-pronged stigma. 
_ M. Auguste de St. Hilaire seems to doubt whether there 
is really more than one species of this genus ; but it is evident 
that the plant he has figured under the name of Schweiggeria 
floribunda in his Plantes remarquables du Brésil et du Para- 
guay must be different from this, if any dependence can be 
placed upon his drawing of the labellum. The species dis- 
tributed from the Vienna herbarium, under the number 192, 
appears to be the latter. 
