The leaves are destitute of spots. It is thus that Botany is en- 
cumbered with a multitude of false species, to gratify a love of 
notoriety by giving a name of one’s own. We are quite ready to 
acknowledge that large dark blotches are a great ornament to the 
foliage ; and when, in addition, the large yellow flowers are in 
perfection, it must be acknowledged to be a plant well worthy of 
a place in every stove collection. Sir Robert Schomburgk de- 
tected the plant in the neighbourhood of Demerara, and sent 
roots to the Messrs. Loddiges, prior to 1843. M. Schlim more 
recently found the spotted-leaved variety in the valley of the 
Magdalena. With us, in a moist stove, this variety flowers 
readily in the summer months. 
Dezscr. The plant grows in a tufted manner, sending up nu- 
merous and all radical leaves, a span and more long, of an ob- 
liquely elliptical form (the two sides unequal), shortly acuminate, 
the base obtuse, villous, petiolate ; petioles long, slender, terete 
and having long sheathing bases, clothed with spreading hairs. 
Scape radical, arising from the sheathing bases of the leaves, 
terete, patenti-villous, terminated by a bracteated long spike of 
large yellow flowers. Bracteas large, imbricate, ventricose, vil- 
lous, the apex acuminate and spreading. Ovary small, inferior, 
turbinate. Calyx of three, erect, lanceolate sepals. Tube of the 
corolla slender, curved. zterior petals (or rather, exterior limb 
of the petal) of three lanceolate lobes: izzer with the superior 
lobe large, broad, and retuse, inferior two-lobed. Stamen soli- 
tary: anther oblong. Style petaloid, curved. 
Fig. 1. Ovary and calyx. 2. Tube of the corolla (laid open), with stamen - 
and style :—magnified. : 
