meliads for a cultivator to obtain. It flowered with us at 
Kew for the first time in the summer of 1878, and again 
in June, 1882, when the present drawing was made. 
Descr. Acaulescent. Produced leaves five or six in a 
rosette, erect, lorate, three or four feet long, two or two 
and a half inches broad at the middle, four inches broad at 
the base, dull green more or less tinted on the back with 
claret-purple and marked with irregular transverse bands 
of white, the marginal prickles deltoid cuspidate, ascending, 
small and moderately close. Peduncle about two feet long, 
terete, densely farinose, with several large lanceolate bright 
red spreading bract-leaves. Flowers without any special 
bracts, arranged in a lax drooping simple spike six or 
eight inches long with a farinose rachis. Ovary oblong, 
half an inch long, densely farinose, with several strong 
vertical ribs ; segments horny, deltoid, not more than half 
as long as the ovary. Petals green, lanceolate, above two 
inches long, furnished with a pair of minute scales at the 
base, rolling up spirally from the top when the flower 
begins to fade. Filaments violet-purple, shorter than the 
petals; anthers linear, basifixed, nearly an inch long. 
Ovary with numerous ovules in a cell; stigmas protruding 
beyond the anthers, twisting up spirally.—J. G. Baker. 
Fig. 1, A petal, with its basal appendages ; 2, front view of an anther; 3, back 
view of an anther ; 4, pistil, showing a vertical section of th ; 6, an ovule:— 
all more or less magnified. : er & 
