mens here figured were communicated by Mr. Clarke, of the 

 Glasgow Botanic Garden, to whom the Royal Gardens are 

 indebted for a fine living plant. 



Desck. A shrub, six to eight feet high, sparingly dichoto- 

 mously branched, throwing up copious, stout, erect, rod-like, 

 scaly surculi from the root. Stems and branches very slender, 

 annulate where the scales have fallen away, terete, with de- 

 ciduous subulate membranous scales here and there on the 

 shoots and at the base of the peduncle. Leaves in scattered, 

 subopposite pairs, and whorled in threes, spreading, flat, tour 

 to six inches long, one and a half to two inches broad, 

 shortly petioled, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, finely striated 

 with parallel nerves, rather membranous in texture. Peduncle 

 terminal, strict, erect or inclined, three to five inches long, 

 slender, with scattered sheathing scales, bearing at the top a 

 globose, lax corymb of greenish-white flowers. Peduncles one 

 inch long, very slender, with subulate bracts at the insertion, 

 jointed near the base. Ovary oblong. Perianth-tube above 

 the ovary nearly half an inch long, slender ; lobes linear, 

 reflexed, obtuse, about as long as the tube, pale-yellowish. 

 Filament slender, filiform, as long as the perianth lobes ; 

 anthers oblong, yellow. Ovary bluntly trigonous ; style very 

 slender ; stigma capitate, three-lobed. Berry as large as a 

 pea, one-seeded. Seed subglobose. — J. I). H. 



Fig. 1. Flower. 2. Upper part of stamen. 3. Pistil. 4. Transverse 

 section of ovary. 5. Fruit : — all hut Fig. 5 magnified. 



