Tas. 5156. 
DIPTERACANTHUS? Herssrnu. 
an 
ee ee 
ee 
Mr. Herbst’s Dipteracanthus. 
Nat. Ord. ACANTHACEZ.—DiIpYNAMIA ANGIOSPERMIA. 
Gen. Char. (Vide supra, Tas. 4494.) 
Dipreracantuus? Herbstii; frutescens, ramis teretibus, scaberulis, foliis 
lanceolatis acuminatis in petiolum angustatis obscure sinuato-serratis, 
nervis crebris, inflorescentia subterminali, floribus axillis foliorum, 3—-5-fasci- 
culatis sessilibus, bracteis setaceis calyce equilongis, calyce subsequaliter 
ad basin fere 5-partito lobis subulatis, corolla puberula, tubo gracillimo dein 
ampliato, subeampanulato lobis 5 brevibus eequalibus recurvis bilobis, sta- 
minibus inclusis, filamentis basi per paria coherentibus, antheris linearibus 
2-locularibus, ovario sub-1 9-o¥ lito. 
a ERGrn fs deci aan Se eo naceie aah Or reat ele tee Wah Onan ah 
very elegant plant, received from Messrs. Herbst and Ros- 
siter, of Rio, and sent as a native of Brazil, flowered in the 
Royal Gardens early in September of the present year, and 
continued in bloom during the two succeeding months. In the 
present unsettled condition of the genera of Acanthacee we have 
been obliged to refer it provisionally to the large genus Diptera- 
canthus, as the only one with the characters of which it at all 
agrees; at the same time we have little doubt but that it is 
congeneric or very closely allied to the Stephanophysum Bavkiet. 
of tropical Africa (Tas. Nostr. 5111), a plant which, though 
agreeing in many respects with the technical characters of that 
genus, differs (according to Pohl’s figures of the Stephanophysum) 
- conspicuously in habit, in the stigma not being equally bilamel- 
late, and in the whole form and structure of the capsule, and in 
wanting the bifurcate retinaculum of the seed. It 1s a most de- 
sirable new stove-plant. : 
Dzscr. An erect shrub or half-shrubby plant, of which our 
individual, now eightee s old, is about a yard high, spar- 
ingly branched, the bra earing a terminal inflorescence, 
consisting of numerous axillary fascicles of sessile flowers, which 
are conspicuous for the very long slender tube of the corolla. 
DECEMBER IsT, 1859. 
