15 
single-flowered. Flmcer of the same gigantic dimensions in 
proportion with the leaf; in pear-shaped (Tab. 4277. f. 1); 
when expanded our specimen here figured (Tab. 4276) measured 
rather more than a foot in diameter, (giving a circumference 
of thirty nine inches); but specimens in their native rivers, have 
been ascertained to be fifteen inches in diameter (forty-five in 
circumference), fragrant. The calyx is deeply quadrifid; the tube 
turbinate, tawny-coloured, very prickly, adnate '\\dth the ovary; 
the segments or sepals large, oval, purple-brown, concave, deci¬ 
duous, a little prickly on the outside towards the base, rather 
shorter than the petals. From within, the mouth of the tube of 
the calyx (at the very base of the segments) extends itself into 
an annular torus, which bears the petals and stamens. Petals 
very numerous, the outer ones spreading and longer than the calyx, 
oblong, concave, obtuse, white, the inner ones gradually becoming 
narrower, much acuminated and insensibly passing into the 
filaments and becoming deeply coloured with purple or full rose. 
Stamens (perfect ones) in about two series, large, subulate, 
fleshy, gracefully incurved below, the rest erect; anther-cells 
double, linear, introrse, occupying the inner face of the filament, 
below the apex, Witliin these fertile stamens is another annular 
circle bearing a double series of abortive filaments only; these, 
with their lower portion, form an aj-cli over the stigmas, the 
upper half being erect. 
Ovary adnate with the whole length of the prickly tube of 
the calyx, and therefore turbinate like it, with a deep radiated 
depression or cavity at the top, and in the centre an elevated 
umbo or short pyramidal column: it may be therefore termed 
cup-shaped, with a thick fleshy base, having air-cells or cavities 
extending downwards into the peduncle; in the upper part of 
this substance, forming, as it were, the rim of the cup, there stand 
in a circle, placed with the greatest regularity, about twenty- 
six to thirty compressed cells, their parietes bearing several ovules 
attached to reticulated funiculi. From the inner edge of the 
cavity, just beneath the inner crown of sterile stamens, and arti¬ 
culated, as it were, at their base (or the base of the torus) rises a 
circle of stigmas, as many as there are cells in the ovaiy, large, 
fleshy, ovate, acuminated, laterally compressed, but geniculated, 
so to speak, in the middle; that is, the lower half of them is erect, 
and the upper half bent at an angle so as to lie horizontally over 
the cavity at the top of the ovary, and parallel or on the same 
plane with the base of the sterile stamens: the back of these 
stigmas is slightly grooved and is the stigmatic surface. 
I much regret I can say nothing of the fruit from my own 
