Tas. 6883, 
.MYRMECODIA Beccarn. 
Native of Tropical Australia. 
Nat. Ord. Rusracem.—Tribe PsycHorriex, 
Genus Myraecopia, Jack. (Beccari, Malesia, vol. ii. p. 95.) 
Myrmecopia Beccarei ; tubere ecostato lobato spinuloso, spinulis brevibus sim- 
plicibus, ramis nodoso-incrassatis eclypeolatis, foliis oblanceolatis v. oblongo- 
oblanceolatis subacutis carnosis in petiolum semiteretem brevem crassum 
angustatis, floribus in alveolis ramorum nidulantibas, stipulis brevissimis in 
membranam 2-fidam tenuiter membranaceam fugacem connatis, bracteis 
obsoletis, calycis glabri iimbo annulari, corolla tubo cylindraceo lobis ovatis 
crassis longiore, staminibus parvis, filamentis antheras breves «#quantibus, 
ovario 4-loculari, fructu cylindraceo-oblongo apice rotundata 4-pyreno, 
The plant here figured is one of the most singular ever 
imported in a living state into this country, and it belongs 
to a genus, or rather to one of a group of genera of 
epiphytic Rubiacee, which have been long known from 
their singular habit of forming often spinous tubers of 
great size, the interior of which is galleried by ants of 
various species, and of which insects these are the native 
homes. ‘Io enter into any details of the history of these 
plants and their inhabitants would require a volume. J 
may, however, remark in respect of their history, that it 
affords one of the most striking instances known to me 
of the advance of botanical knowledge within so recent a 
period. In 1874, at the date of publication of the Genera 
Plantarum, our knowledge of the ant-nesting Iwbiacee 
was that it consisted of two very imperfectly known 
genera, Hydnophytwm and Myrmecodia, with four or six ill- 
characterized species between them; whereas in 1884 
there appeared the splendid monograph of Signor Beccari, 
on “insect-nesting plants,” in which he establishes four 
genera of Malayan ant-harbouring Lubiacee, with upwards 
of fifty species, many of them discovered by himselt in the 
Malayan Archipelago and New Guinea. Signor Beccari’s 
monograph, entitled Piante ospitatrice, forms two parts of a 
JULY Ist, 1886. . 
