Lpiscia chontalensis is a brilliantly coloured herbaceous 
plant, a native of the Chontales region of Nicaragua, where 
it was found in shady groves by the bank of a rivulet, near 
the Javali gold mine. It was procured for Mr. Bull, of 
Chelsea, to whom the Royal Gardens are indebted for a 
specimen, which flowered profusely in June of the present 
year, shortly after the accompanying drawing had been made 
from one of Mr. Bull’s plants. 
Descr. A succulent, softly hirsute, herbaceous plant. 
Stems stout, terete, decumbent or ascending, dark red-purple, 
six to ten inches long. eaves opposite and irregularly 
whorled, petioled, three to four inches long, oblong-ovate or 
elliptic-oblong, crenate-serrate, obtuse, base rounded or sub- 
cordate, very convex on either side of the depressed midrib, 
and between the much-sunk veins; margins recurved; upper 
surface reticulated, bright emerald-green in the centre, with a 
broad dark purple limb, the purple advancing towards the 
midrib between the veins, under surface pale with prominent 
veins. lowers solitary and geminate; pedicels equalling 
the petioles, hirsute. Calyx small, green or red, segments 
linear-spatheolate, recurved, entire or toothed towards the 
tip. Corolla very pale lilac, deflexed; tube one inch long, 
slightly upcurved, with a prominent rounded sac projecting 
backwards beyond the calyx; limb flat, oblique, one and a 
half to two inches in diameter, lobes orbicular with toothed 
margins. Stamens included. Ovary minute, with an erect 
dorsal hypogynous gland. Séy/e filiform, stigma 2-lipped, 
included.—/. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Calyx, style, and stigma; 2, ovary and hypogynous gland :—both 
magnified. 
