PITTIER — PLANTS FROM COLOMBIA AND CENTRAL AMERICA. 131 

 POLAKOWSKIA, A NEW GENUS. 



Among the unnamed materials of the collection of the Instituto 

 fisico-geografico we also found specimens of a plant the fruit of 

 which is quite popular in Costa Rica as a vegetable and known under 

 the name of tacaco, derived from one of the native languages. At 

 first sight this plant, which can be considered as semicultivated, 

 since it is tolerated wherever found near or in cultivated fields, 

 seems to come very close to the well known Seckium edule. But on 

 examining the male flowers, it is found that they are provided with 

 10 pouch-like nectaries, sunk into the bottom of the corolla and 

 protruding on the outer side at the base of the calyx. This feature 

 is also characteristic of the Mexican genus Sechiopsis Naud. ; but 

 while in our plant both male and female flowers are pentamerous 

 and the latter solitary in the axils of the leaves, the female flowers 

 in Sechiopsis are trimerous and form small umbels by the side of the 

 male racemes. The fruits of the present species, moreover, are ovate, 

 flattened, and covered with soft spines, and not triangular and winged. 

 Here, then, we have again obvious reasons for creating a new genus, 

 which we will dedicate to Dr. 11. Polakowsky, one of the earlier 

 students of the flora of Costa Rica and a well-known writer on sub- 

 jects related to Central and South America. 



Polakowskia Pittier, gen. now 



Flowers monoecious. Male inflorescence racemose. Calyx and corolla connate, 

 broadly campanulate. Calycinal teeth, small, subulate. Segments of the corolla 5, 

 spreading, ovate-triangular. Nectaries forming 10 pouch-like pits at the bottom of 

 the flower. Stamens 5, the filaments coherent in a slender, elongate column; anthers 

 free, more or less spreading, one of them single, 4 connate in two pairs; anther cells 

 diversely conduplicate and forming a depressed head. Pollen grains globose, minutely 

 muricate, obscurely 8-sulcate. Pistillodium none. Female flowers solitary in the 

 same axils with the male ones and smaller than these. Calyx and corolla coherent, 

 thick, rotaceous, the former 5-toothed, the latter with 5 ovate-triangnlar lobes. Ovary 

 fusiform, 1 -celled, slightly setose at the base; style very short; stigma capitate, 

 obscurely 5dobed; ovule single, pendulous from the apex of the cell. Fruit rather 

 fleshy, fusiform, depressed, 5-sulcate, monosperm, with soft spines at the base; dehis- 

 cence 2-valvate. Seed elliptic, compressed, the testa subligneous, smooth and with 

 subacute margins. 



A Costa Rican plant, herbaceous or suffruticose, climbing, glabrous. Roots fleshy. 

 Stems perennial. Leaves membranous, deeply emarginate, palmate-nerved, slightly 

 3-lobate. Tendrils 5-fid. Flowers small, of a sallow white color. Fruit medium- 

 sized, edible. 



Polakowskia tacaco Pittier, sp. nov. Plate 20. Figures 40, 41. 



Stems slender, branched, densely foliose, sulcate, smooth, 2 to 6 meters long. 



Petioles slender, striate, smooth, 3 to 8 cm. long. Leaves 5 to 9 cm. long, 5 to 11 

 cm. broad, deep green, densely covered with minute white dots above, paler beneath, 

 quite glabrous; margin obscurely sinuate-dentate; lobes not deeply cut, acuminate, 

 the middle one longer and broader. Tendrils rather thick, usually 5-branched. 



a Probably from the giiclaru, although the name is used by the Pribri of Talamanca 

 for the fruits of Frantziu pittieri (Tonduz in sched,). This fact seems to point to a 

 very ancient use as a food plant. 



