long, spreading from the root, appressed (except at their up- 
turned tips) to the ground, stout, densely leafy. Leaves one 
to one and one-half inches long, rather fleshy, translucent, 
close-set, imbricating, distichous, spreading horizontally, 
ovate-cordate, acute, sessile on their sheaths, green and convex 
above with recurved purple tips, margins recurved, bright red 
‘beneath; nerves seven to nine, obscure; sheaths one quarter 
of an inch long, cylindric, fringed with long cilia. lowers 
four to eight racemed in pairs on short peduncles at the ends 
of the branches and branchlets, one-third of an inch in diameter, 
shortly pedicelled, each with one elliptic-oblong bract on the 
pedicel. Sepals three, perfectly free, ovate-oblong, acute, 
hispid on the back, Peta/s orbicular, quite free, membranous, 
red, nerveless, very shortly clawed. Stamens rather longer 
than the petals, filaments filiform, beards blue ; anthers yellow. 
Cells slightly diverging upwards. Ovary hispid, 3-celled; style 
slender, filiform, quite glabrous, stigma punctiform ; ovules 
two in each cell, superposed, upper ascending, lower pendu- 
lous.—J. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Flower; 2, calyx and ovary; 3, stamens :—all magnified. 
