and abortive three- or more-celled ovaries, characters which 

 are not obvious in the'Kew specimens. Under these circum- 

 stances I can only assume, that if H. Ghiesbregldii be rightly 

 referred to Heckiia, the latter is a polygamous genus liable 

 to great variations in its ovary, and possibly identical with 

 Dyckia. Indeed, the similarity of this plant to Dyckia is very 

 striking, both in habit and floral characters ; but the latter 

 genus has a wholly superior ovary, and many ovules in each 

 cell. The order to which it belongs is, I think, clearly 

 Bromeliacea. 



H. Ghiesbreghtii is a native of Mexico, introduced by M. 

 Verschaffelt of Ghent, in 1S62, by the collector whose name 

 it bears, and is a very attractive greenhouse plant, on account 

 of its remarkably beautiful purple and green foliage, which is 

 silvery below. The flowers, which appeared at Kew in July, 

 smell of hawthorn, and are very insignificant indeed. 



Descr. Stem 0. Leaves ten to eighteen inches long, most 

 densely crowded into a rosulate mass, strongly recurved and 

 clasping the flower-pot all round, rigidly coriaceous, three- 

 quarters to one and a quarter inch broad at the base, gradu- 

 ally narrowed from thence to the rigid pungent tip ; margins 

 beset with rather distant rigid spinous teeth ; upper surface 

 bright green from the base to the middle, blood-red or purple 

 from thence to the tip, under surface silvery grey. Scapes 

 several, axillary, suberect, flexuous, very slender, scurfy, 

 eighteen to twenty-four inches long ; bracts sheathing, acu- 

 minate. Flowers white, one-third of an inch in diameter, 

 sessile in rather distant capitate fascicles along the upper part 

 of the scape; bracteoles minute, concave, scarious, yellow- 

 brown. Sepals linear-oblong, obtuse, scurfy, erect, half as 

 long as the corolla, inserted towards the base of the ovary. 

 Corolla inserted towards the summit of the ovary, 3-lobed 

 nearly to the base ; lobes rounded, spreading. Stamens six, 

 sub-equal, inserted towards the base of the corolla, filaments 

 broadly subulate; anthers oblong, apiculate. Ovary 3- 

 celled, summit broadly conical ; styles three, short subulate ; 

 ovules apparently one in each cell. — /. D. H. 



Fig. 1, reduced view of the plant; 2, leaf; and 3, portion of scape, both 

 ot the natural size; 4, flowers and bracteole; 5, vertical section of ditto; 

 6, stamen : — all magnified. 



