species or varieties. Of the three one has produced a 

 noble plant of dwarf habit fifteen to eighteen inches high; 

 another is a plant three to three and a half feet high, with 

 smaller male flowers, but no pollen ; the third has the 

 habit of the first, but is smaller, like a starved form. In 

 the same letter Messrs. H. and S. request that the first or 

 second should bear the name of the discoverer of all, Herr 

 D. Scharff. 



Bee harffiana was introduced by Miss Haage and 



Schmidt from the Peninsula of Destierro in the Island of 

 St. Catherine, S. Brazil, and is possibly a native of the 

 Sierra de Catherina in the interior of the province of that 

 name. It is one of the most magnificent species of the 

 genus. The Royal Gardens are indebted to the importers 

 for the plant from which our figure was taken. It flowered 

 for the first time in September, 1887, producing female 

 flowers; these were followed in October by male flowers 

 and female buds, and in November again by another crop 

 of male flowers. 



Desce. Whole plant hispid with red leaves. Stem one 

 to one and a half feet high, branched ; branches, leaves 

 beneath, petioles, peduncles and pedicels blood-red, patently 

 hairy. Leaves a foot long and more, very obliquely ovate- 

 cordate with rounded lobes and an acute sinus, acuminate, 

 sinuate and very obtusely toothed, hairy on both surfaces, 

 dark green above with impressed reddish nerves ; stipules 

 short, triangular-ovate, green. Cyw* large, unisexual, 

 much branched, many-fld. ; bracts small, ovate-lanceolate, 

 brown, deciduous ; flower white with a few red hairs on 

 the back of the sepals. Malefl. two and a half inches 

 in diameter; sepals orbicular, coriaceous. Petals small, 

 narrowly spathulate, obtuse. Stamens forming a small 

 globose mass ; anthers linear-oblong, obtusely apiculate, 

 longer than the filament. Fern. fl. one and a half to 

 one and three-quarters of an inch in diameter ; sepals sub- 

 equal, broadly elliptic, obtuse. Ovary densely hispidly 

 villous with long red hairs, three-celled ; styles large, the 

 twisted arms stout, resembling small spiral shells ; pla- 

 centas simple or two-fid in separate or the same ovaries. — 

 J. D. H. 



Figs. 1 and 2, Back and front view of stamen ; 3, ovary and styles ; 4, transverse 

 section of do. -.—all enlarged. 



