pean gardens from Manilla by Messrs. Veitch and Son. We think 

 it more than probable that this state of the plant is the A. commu- 

 tatum of Schott, Synops. p. 123, for his description sufficiently 

 agrees with our plant, as does the analysis of the fructification in 

 his fine work on the ' Genera Aroidearum.' The difference of the 

 venation, on which he lays so much stress, we find to be vari- 

 able on the same plant, and even on the same leaf. The plant 

 is a graceful one, and in age the stem-like caudex increases con- 

 siderably in length. 



It has been generally considered that plants with gay-coloured 

 or variegated foliage are pre-eminently natives of the Malay Is- 

 lands and that region, but it will probably be found that those 

 of tropical America are equally deserving of cultivation. On in- 

 quiring of my friend Mr. Spruce if he did not meet at Para or on 

 the Moyobansha with the fine-coloured Iresine Herbstii, figured 

 in our present number of the Magazine, he says, " I have some 

 recollection of seeing an Amaranthacea very like it, but I did not 

 gather it, because it was out of flower;" and he adds, "You 

 know that when I left England in 1849 nobody cared for painted- 

 leaved plants, and it was not till I got to the western side of the 

 Andes that I learnt there was such a rage for them. I then re- 

 membered how many striped and spotted leaves I had seen of 

 Scitaminea, Aroideat, Cissi, etc., in the Amazon Valley, and had 

 admired their beauty, but never dreamt that anybody would care 

 for them in England. For the same reason Martius might easily 

 pass over a painted-leaved Amaranth in South Brazil, where you 

 say he ought to have seen it." 



Fig. 1. Male flower, a stamen. 2. Female flower, pistil, which is quite 

 goblet-shaped. 3. Transverse section of the ovary. 4. Vertical section of the 

 same, with a solitary ovule in the cell -.—magnified. 



