his • Prodromns Systematis Aroidearum,' abolished that species 

 and referred it as a mere variety ("colore plus minusve atro- 

 purpnreo") of the well-known Alocasia Indica, Schott {Arum 

 Indicum of Roxburgh). Independent of other most important 

 characters, the stigma of our A. metallica (and it is the same in 

 A. Lowii) is remarkable, no less for its great size in proportion 

 to the ovary than for its being deeply divided into three to five 

 spreading acute lobes ; whereas in A. inodora the stigma is de- 

 presso-hemispharicum, and is considered to be characteristic of 

 the genus by that great writer on Aroidece, Schott. 



Let it be observed that both these splendid species we are now 

 considering are inhabitants of the same country, Borneo, (perhaps 

 now the finest country in the world for the researches of the 

 botanist and the horticulturist,) and both of them were intro- 

 duced by Messrs. Low, of Clapton. The plant here figured was 

 communicated to us by Messrs. E. G. Henderson and Son, of 

 Wellington Road, St. John's Wood, in April, 1864. 



Descr. Our plant was a solitary one, not (as yet at least) 

 growing in dense tufts, like our Alocasia metallica, and it pos- 

 sessed but one leaf ; its petiole springs with a broad base directly 

 from the summit of the rhizome, annotated at the summit, and 

 is a foot and a half high, green, purplish upwards, ringed and 

 spotted with darker lines, shortly sheathing at the base. The 

 blade of the leaf is fifteen inches long, peltate, sagittato-ovate, 

 or subcordate, extremely handsome in colour, very full, dark- 

 green above, edged with a thickened whitish margin, while the 

 costa and primary veins are enclosed as it were in broad bands 

 of a whitish or sea-green colour, melting into the dark-green or 

 sending out slender white anastomosing veinlets, while the whole 

 underside is rich purple. The sinus of the lobes is very deep ; 

 the lobes are subparallel (not spreading), and have each a strong 

 branch of the stout costa running down much nearer the inner 

 than the outer margin. The primary veins or costules are remote 

 and horizontal, but only on the outer side of the two branches 

 just spoken of; on the rest of the leaf they are on both sides 

 and nearly opposite. Scape from the short sheath at the base of 

 the petiole, and very much shorter than it, pale- green speckled 

 with dark purple, and clothed, for nearly its whole length, with 

 sheathing pale-coloured bracts, elegantly lined and dotted with 

 red. Spatha four and a half inches long, globose and green at 

 the base, the rest cucullato-cymbiform, yellowish-white tinged 

 with red. Spadix sessile or nearly so, the lowest portion clothed 

 with pistils. Ovary globose. Style very short : stigma very large, 

 of four to five star-like rays ; between these and the anthers is 

 a contraction occupied by (/lands, of which the inferior are pro- 

 bably abortive pistils, whilst the upper ones seem to pass gradually 



