represented as to species, extends throughout the Andes 

 almost to Cape Horn itself, and is found also in South 

 Brazil. In Asia, south of the tropics, one species alone is 

 known, the A. crassifolia, Hook., of the Tasmanian Alps, 

 which belongs to a different section of the genus from the 

 African or American species. Its geographically nearest 

 allies are tropical and very remote indeed, namely, the 

 A. sumatrana of Sumatra, and unpublished species in the 

 Philippine Islands. 



A. Fanninii, as observed above, is very nearly related to 

 A. Caffra, and may indeed prove to be a gigantic form of 

 that species, from which it differs chiefly in its very much 

 larger size, and the more rounded lobes of the leaf. The 

 specimen here drawn was received in June, 1835, from Mr. 

 J. Medley Wood, of the Natal Botanical Gardens, and 

 flowered in a cool pit at the Royal Gardens in April of the 

 present year. The flowers, which last about a fortnight, 

 are sweet-scented, and the petals green for several days 

 before expanding. In the open air the leaves attained 

 fifteen inches in diameter. It is quite hardy, plants having 

 stood out of doors at Kew all last winter. 



Descr. Bootstoclc stout, woody. Leaves suborbicular, 

 eight to twenty-four inches in diameter, coriaceous, five- 

 to seven-lobed, velvety above, densely or laxly villous 

 beneath, with spreading subsilky hairs, palmatinerved ; 

 nerves very stout beneath; lobes rounded, obtuse, ir- 

 regularly toothed; petiole one to two feet long, silkily 

 villous with spreading hairs below and appressed ones 

 above, or appressed throughout. Scape two to five feet 

 high, very robust, clothed like the petiole two- rarely 

 three-flowered ; involucre of two rarely three linear bracts 

 one to three inches long, entire or with lobed tips, densely 

 silky externally. Flowers three to four inches in diameter, 

 pure white, fragrant ; pedicels eight to ten inches long or 

 more. Sepals very inconstant in number, twelve to thirty, 

 linear-lanceolate, acuminate, silky externally. Stamens very 

 numerous, in many series, densely crowded round the 

 pistil. Carpels numerous, silkily villous, terminating in a 

 slender glabrous style of about twice the length of the 

 ovary, and which does not appear to lengthen after 

 flowering — J. D. H. 



Fig. 1 and 2, Stamens ; 3, carpels : — all enlarged. 



