Tab. 7209. 

 TROCHETIA Blackburniana. 



Native of the Mauritius. 



"Nat. Ord. Sterculiacej;. — Tribe Dombeye^e. 

 Genus Tkochetia, DC; (Benth. et Hook.f. Gen. Plant., vol. i. p. 222.) 



Teochetia Blachburnianoj; f rutex v. arbuscula, ramulis petiolis costis foliorum 

 pedanculisque pilis stellatis ferrugineo-furfuraceia, foliis longe petiolatis 

 elliptico- v. obovato-oblongis acutis integerrimis v. crenato-serratis a basi 

 7-costatis, basi subcordatis, supra tete viridibus sparse lepidotis subtus 

 pallidis, pedunculis supra-axillaribus unifloris 2-bracteolatis petiolo 

 longioribus decurvis, floribus amplis campanulatis, sepalis elongatis lan- 

 ceolatis dorso puberulis, petalis convolatis oblique obovato-rotundatis 

 infra medium albis roseo venosis apicibus sanguineis, antheris 30 

 linearibus in apicem columnse stamineee plicatas subsessilibus, ovario 

 stellatim tomeatello, stigmatibus brevissimis. 



T. Blackburniana, Bojer Sort. Maurit.41 (name only) ; Baker, Fl.Maurit. 29. 



Trochetia is one of the most interesting genera of plants, 

 on account of its unique distribution ; the few species 

 which it contains being, with the exception of one found 

 in Madagascar, confined to the two oceanic Islands of St. 

 Helena in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mauritius in the 

 Indian. The species are thus separated by nearly two 

 thousand miles of ocean as well as by the interposed con- 

 tinent of Africa, which covers as many miles of latitude. 

 There are four Mauritian species, of which one alone has 

 flowered and been figured in this country, the T. triflora, 

 DC. (T. grandifiora, Lindl. Bot. Reg. 1844, t. 21), with 

 white corymbose flowers larger than those of T. Black- 

 burniana, and twenty anthers ; it blossomed at Syon 

 House in 1844, and is no doubt long lost. As far as is 

 known the Mauritian species are all still to be found in more 

 or less abundance in the virgin forests of the higher parts 

 of that island. It is very different in the case of the two 

 St. Helena species, T. melanoxylon, Benth. {Pentapet.es 

 Erythroxylon, Tab. 1000 of this work), and T. Erythroxylon, 

 Benth. {Melhania Erythroxylon). 



Of these the first has been extinct for many years in the 



Dscbmbeb 1st, 1891. 



