tinguished friend, the Orientalist, Brian H. Hodgson, 
LL.D., F.R.S., formerly Minister at the Nepal Court, 
my host for many months at Darjeeling, who passed 
away only last year at the great age of ninety-four. 
Two plants of 7. Hodgsoni were received at Kew from 
the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta, about twenty years ago, 
and were grown in pots in the Palm House. They were 
subsequently removed to the Temperate House, and 
planted out there, where the tallest is now 25 ft. high, 
with leaves 2 ft. long. Mr. Watson informs me that the 
plant flowered in a sunny position, and that the flowers 
last but a few hours after fully opening. They are at 
first white, then change to creamy-yellow, before fading 
to a dark brown. My attention was first directed to the 
tree in the dense Sikkim forests by seeing the petals in 
the ground, which resembled hen’s eggs, and had a spicy 
fragrance. 
Deser.—An erect evergreen tree, with a clean trunk off 
30 to 40 feet high, and three to six feet in girth, flowering 
and leafing together. Leaves 8-20 inches long, by 4-9 
broad, obovate-oblong, cuspidate or obtuse, coriaceous, 
glabrous, margins waved; costa and nerves strong; 
nervules closely reticulate, bright green above, pale, and 
more or less glaucous beneath; petiole 1-2 inches long. — 
Flowers solitary, terminal, fragrant, 6-7 inchesin diameter _ 
across the outspread sepals; peduncle 1-14 in. long, stout, 
green, ringed by the caducous bracts ; buds about 3 inches 
long, ovoid. Sepals 3-5,obovate-oblong, concave, thick and 
fleshy, dark vinous purple externally; suffused internally 
with pink. Petals about six, like the petals, but all white or 
faintly rose-colrd. towards the tips. Stamens numerous, — 
on a conical torus; filaments very short, anthers linear, — 
red. fruit ovoid, woody, four to six inches long, muri- 
cate, formed of numerous sharply beaked dehiscent carpels, 
which fall away from a deeply pitted woody central 
column. Seeds one or two in each carpel, orbicular, 
compressed ; outer coat of testa fleshy, red—J. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Apex of peduncle with stamens and carpels, some of the latter 
removed to show the convex receptacle:—of the nat. size; 2, stamens; 
3, carpel; 4, the same laid open, showing the ovules, al/ enlarged; 5, reduced 
views of plant in the temperate house, Kew. 
