not altogether, and violent illnesses often follow a hearty 
meal of “Tong,” as this food is called. The nutritious 
starch, with which these tubers are filled, might be easily 
separated by grating and washing, and an aliment as good 
as Portland Island arrow-root (the starch of Arum maculatum) 
be thus procured in quantities. 
The Royal Gardens are indebted for tubers of this plant to 
Mr. Gammie, formerly a gardener at Kew, and now the intel- 
ligent superintendent of the Sikkim Cinchona plantations ; it 
flowered in a cool greenhouse in May of the present year. 
Duscr. Zuber as large as a nut or walnut, with many 
fleshy fibres. Leaves usually two, sheathing the back of the 
Scape, and surrounded by two or three appressed sheaths at 
the base, which, as well as the petioles, are blotched with 
dull purple ; petiole six to ten inches long, cylindric; lamina 
‘six to twelve inches in diameter, orbicular in outline ; pedate ; 
leaflets eight to eighteen, distant, spreading horizontally and 
drooping, four to eight inches long, sessile or shortly petioled, 
lanceolate, acuminate or caudate at the tip, bright green, quite 
entire, membranous, obscurely three-nerved. Scape two to 
four feet high, terete, erect. Spathe erect, four to seven 
inches long; tube cylindric, green, obscurely striped with 
white, half the length of the whole spathe; edges hardly 
overlapping ; blade elliptic, vaulted, arching forwards, with 
an acute, often erect tip, green inside, green or brown-purple 
outside. Spadix one-third to twice as long as the spathe ; 
flowering portion included in the tube of the spathe; naked 
portion exserted, cylindric, arching forwards and upwards, 
smooth, green, tapering from the flowering portion to the 
slender suberect tip. Stamens scattered, filament columnar ; 
anther capitate, three to four-lobed. Ovaries scattered, 
flaggon-shaped ; style very short, stigma papillose ; ovules 
three to four, basal. Fruit a globose mass of fleshy red 
berries.—J. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Reduced figure of whole plant; 2, leaf and portion of scape; 3, 
spathe; 4, portion of spadix :—all of natural size; 5, anthers; 6, stamen; 
7, ovary; 8, vertical, and 9, transverse section of do. :—all magnified. 
