oe Mee oe ee eA > Amma 
Tas. 5307. 
BEGONIA prismaTocarpa. 
Prism-fruited Begonia. 
Nat. Ord. BEGonrAcE®.—Monecra POLYANDRIA. 
Gen. Char. (Vide supra, Tas. 4172.) 
BeGonia prismatocarpa ; herbacea humilis, caulibus teretibus repentibus pilosis, 
ramis ascendentibus, stipulis ovatis acutis membranaceis fimbriatis, foliis 
longe petiolatis oblique cordato-ovatis subpalmato-lobatis, lobis acuminatis 
ineequaliter serratis hinc latioribus, petiolis teretibus pilosis, pedunculis 
axillaribus pilosis petiolo longioribus umbellatim bi-trifloris, umbella brac- 
teis duabus stipuleeformibus, floribus dipetalis, masculis staminibus mona- 
delphis, antheris lineari-cuneiformibus, filamento perbrevi, capsula (imma- 
tura) elongata lineari-oblonga quadrangulari vix alata angulis equalibus 
4-loculari, stylo profunde 4-partito, stigmatibus capitatis pubescentibus. 
If this is wanting in floral beauty, it is nevertheless a very 
interesting plant, a Begonia with an elongated, four-celled, four- 
sided capsule, a quadripartite style, and capitate stigmas. It is dis- 
covered by Mr. Gustav Mann in Fernando Po. It will probably 
constitute a new genus among Begoniacee with M. Alphonse de 
Candolle, who has already alluded to some imperfect specimens 
of the plant in his valuable ‘Mémoire sur la Famille des Bego- 
niacées,’ in the eleventh volume of the ‘Annales des Sciences 
Naturelles’ (quatriéme série, Botan.): “ L’Herbier de Sir W. J. 
Hooker m’a fait connaitre une espece de Fernando Po, trop in- 
complete dans la collection pour qu’on pit la décrire, et qui 
semble un genre ou une sectiom trés-distincte, remarquable par — 
un ovaire ¢troit et allongé, analogue a celui des Prismatocarpus.” 
It is one of the many interesting new plants we have lately re- 
ceived through our collector from the mountain regions of tropical 
Western Africa. It flowered in the stove at Kew in December, 
1861. Its locality was rocks and trees at an elevation of 3000 — 
feet above the sea-level. 
Descr. The plant is small and insignificant-looking ; it has — 
creeping, herbaceous, rounded, hairy sfems and ascending 
branches. Leaves on long petioles, also hairy, the largest of — 
APRIL Ist, 1862. 
