Tas. 6468. 
BAA HYGROMETRICA. 
Native of N. China. 
Nat. Ord. GEsNERACERH.—Tribe CyRTANDREA. 
Genus Baa, Comm.; (Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. vol. ii. p. 1023.) 
Baa hygrometrica ; acaulis, albo-sericea, foliis omnibus radicalibus rosulatis sessi- 
libus orbiculari-ovatis v. -ellipticis crenatis subtus albo-lanatis, scapis gracilibus 
foliis zquilongis v. longioribus nudis 1-pauci-floris, pedicellis calycibusque 
patentim pilosis, calycis lobis parvis triangulari-lanceolatis, corolle tubo am- 
pullaceo, labii superioris lobis 2 orbiculatis, inferioris lobis 3 majoribus oblongis, 
eapsula siliqueeformi elongata calyce multoties longiore. 
B. hygrometrica, Brown in Benn. Pl. Jav. Rar. p.120; Deless. Ic. Lel. vol. v. 
t. 5: 
Dorcockras hygrometrica, Bunge Enum. Pl. Chin. n, 301. 
The genus Bea is an Asiatic one, and its head-quarters 
are the hilly country of Hastern Bengal, Tenasserim, and 
’ Birma, from whence there are seven or eight species, several 
of them undescribed. One is found as far east as the 
Philippine Islands, and another in N. Australia, whilst the 
subject of the present plate occurs a long way to the north 
of the ordinary range of the genus, namely, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Pekin. 
The first described species of the genus B. Commersonii 
is even a more distant outlier than any of the above, 
and though discovered upwards of a century ago, its 
native country has been only very recently ascertained. 
For half a century it was claimed by America, and located 
in the dismal region of Fuegia (Straits of Magellan); 
for the next half-century it was put down as African, and 
attributed to the Seychelle Islands, whereas it now proves 
to be a native of an island in the Western Pacific. ‘The 
history of its re-discovery in Commerson’s habitat is given 
by Dr. Trimen in the Journal of the Linnean Society 
(Botany, vol. xv. p. 163, where the name is by a typo- 
graphical error spelled Boéa), and is so curious that I shall 
transcribe it here. The genus was discovered in 1768 by 
Commerson, the naturalist to Bougainville’s voyage round 
the world, who in his MSS. proposed for it the generic 
name Bea, in honour of his brother-in-law, the Rev. Dr. 
Beau, of Toulon; the species was subsequently described 
in 1783 by Lamarck, from Commerson’s specimens and 
DECEMBER lst, 1879. 
