to the Malayan Islands and tropical Australia. It has | 
not, however, been detected in Ceylon, As might be | 
expected, with so wide a range, it varies much in habit, — 
and in the size of the leaves and flowers, and it is very — 
possible that more than one species is included under the 
above name. Amongst the very large series of Indian — 
specimens that I have examined, I find the greatest 
differences (and they are very great) to be in the stout-— 
ness or the contrary of the rachis and branches of the 
panicle, in the length and stoutness of the peduncles of the | 
head of flowers, and of the pedicels of the flowers them- 
selves. Inthe Himalaya the peduncles and pedicels are 
for the most part as represented in the plate, but i 
Malabar, Burma, Penang, and in Wight’s figure all the — 
ramifications of the panicle are very slender and distinct, — 
the peduncles attain an inch long, and the pedicels half an 
inch. The flowers, too, vary greatly in size. In no case — 
do I find any note of the colour of the panicle and its — 
ramifications being red, as in the plant here figured; m_ 
all that I saw in the Himalaya and Khasia Hills, Iq 
remember no colour but green. Wight, however, figures 
these as violet-blue, and the flowers as green. : 
I regret not being able to give the native country of | 
var. erythrostachys. The specimen figured is from a plant 
cultivated in the Temperate House of the Royal Gardens, : 
presented by M. de Falbe, Danish Minister, from the 
Villa Valetta, Cannes. It flowered in April, 1894. The 
species is, as Mr. Watson informs me, not uncommon I 
such gardens as can afford it house-room, but it seldom 
flowers. : 
Descr.—A small, diffusely branching tree, or bush, with 
rooting lower branches, or sometimes a woody climbers 
branchlets stout, dark green, dotted with white. Leaves 
alternate ; petiole 4-8 inches long, terete ; leaflets 7-9, 
whorled, 5-7 inches long, elliptic- or ovate-oblong, obtuse, 
acute, or subcaudately obtusely acuminate, base cuneate 
or cordate, reticulate on both surfaces ; petiolule 1-1} in. 
Panicle on a short, stout, slender peduncle, glabrous oF 
puberulous ; branches subverticillate, 3-6 inches longs 
stout or slender, spreading, bearing throughout thelr 
Ne peduncled, globose heads of flowers about §—3 in. 
lam. lowers minute, polygamous; pedicels short 
