Descr. An erect perennial herb, two to three feet high, 
everywhere quite glabrous, smooth and shining. Stem wiry, 
rigid, cylindrical, of a dirty-purple colour, flexuous, simple. 
Leaves on very long petioles, eight to ten inches broad, 
triangular in outline, biternately compound ; petiole of the 
lowermost leaf a foot long, sheathing at the very base ; 
partial petioles very slender, lateral divaricating; leaflets 
two to four inches long, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, cuneate at 
the base, unequally incised-serrate or toothed, the teeth 
apiculate, terminal petiolulate, lateral sessile. Flowers one 
and a half inch in diameter, drooping or inclined, in lax 
few-flowered racemes, or the lowest flower axillary; bracts 
on the rachis and pedicel small, green, rigid, lanceolate, or two 
to three-fid ; pedicels two to four inches long, curved. Sepals 
about nine, concave, spreading, the three outer dirty-purple 
externally, internally a pale lilac, as are all the rest and the 
petals. Petals about twelve, erect, strongly imbricating in 
several series, about one-third the length of the sepals, linear- 
oblong, rather contracted downwards, tip rounded, thickened 
towards the base on the middle of the inner face. Stamens 
numerous, filaments filiform; anthers narrowly oblong, con- 
nective much thickened at the back, and produced intoa 
point ; cells adnate, linear, opening in front. Carpels 3, 
erect, subulate, ending in slender erect styles; ovules very 
numerous, two-seriate. Fruit carpels two, stipitate, sharply 
deflexed, obtuse, faleate, membranous, much compressed, with 
the stigma lateral, about ten-seeded. Seeds oblong; testa 
covered with membranous quadrate scales radiating especially 
from the margins; albumen copious; embryo minute, 
cotyledons short oblong, radicle subglobose.— J. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Petal; 2, stamens; 3, carpels; 4 and 5, the same cut vertically and 
transversely ; 6, follicles; 7 seed; 8 and 9, the same cut transversely and verti- 
cally; 10, embryo :—all enlarged. 
