Tas. 5554, 
BEGONTA BACCATA. 
Berried-fruited Begonia. 
Nat. Ord. Begontacez.—Monecta Ponyanpria. 
Gen. Char. (Vide supra, Tan. 4172.) 
Braonta baccata ; herbacea, elata, monoica, robusta, caule petiolis pedun- 
culisque breviter tomentosis, foliis late cordato-rotundatis abrupte 
acuminatis remote inequaliter sinuato-dentatis subtus et utrinque 
secus nervos pubescentibus, stipulis amplis late oblongis obtusis 
deciduis, cymis brevibus axillaribus 6-8-floris, floribus magnis albis, 
sepalis utroque sexu 2 oblongo-rotundatis, antheris linearibus sub- 
emarginatis filamento gracili longioribus, ovario subgloboso obscure 
5-6-sulcato 5-6-loculari, septis ramosis placentiferis, stylis 5-6 bicor- 
nutis cornubus tortis, fructu (ex Mannio) baccato indehiseente subglo- 
boso, carnoso. 
One of the most remarkable of the discoveries of our in- 
defatigable collector, Gustav Mann, in the Bight of Benin, 
was a fine and robust Begonia, with a baccate fruit ; of this, 
the subject of our present Plate, he sent living specimens to 
the Royal Garden in 1861, from the island of St. Thomas, 
which flowered in May of last year. ‘The same collector also 
gathered it in Fernando Po, growing on an epiphyte at an 
altitude of 1300 feet. Like the very different, but scarcely 
less remarkable B. prismatocarpa (Tab. 5307), and the even 
more remarkable fern-leaved B. aspleniifolia, Hook. f. (A. DC. 
Prod. xy. 320), both also discovered by Mr. Mann, the B. 
Mannii stands alone as a section of the genus, differing from 
all described in A. De Candolle’s elaborate monograph of 
the genus, in the baccate fruit and five- or six-celled ovary, 
in which the septa are deeply lobed, or almost branched and 
covered with ovules; for the details of this I am indebted 
to Mr. Fitch’s careful drawing, not having had the oppor- 
tunity of examining the plant when in flower. 
Descr. Stems tall, robust, as thick as the thumb, covered 
with ferruginous tomentum, as are the petioles, peduncles 
hed 
JANUARY Ist, 1866. 
