- abrownish colour and became soft, and the integument of the 
names which that plant has borne to the present. Mr. Back- 
house alone has imported ripe fruit; and the seeds which he 
describes are in appearance similar to the so-called bulbiform 
seed of other Amaryllidaceous plants, Crinum for example. We 
shall conclude this article with a description from the living plant, 
by Mr. Backhouse, which accompanied the specimen. 
Descr. “ After removing the flower-stem, the plant was taken 
out of the pot, and the earth thoroughly washed from it, so as 
to allow a complete investigation of its root. This was done 
with a view of relieving the plant from the encumbrance of a ball 
of exhausted hard earth. The vertical root-stock is about four 
inches long, cylindrical, and truncated; the lower two inches 
are bare and like a section of a broomstick, about an inch in dia- 
meter. From the upper two inches protrude numerous whitish 
branched jidres, about the thickness of a goose’s quill, clothed 
with a short pubescence on their younger portions. ‘The /eaves 
on our oldest plant were twenty-three in number, in opposite 
rows, the widened base of each leaf embracing that of the op- 
posite one ; and in this respect, as well as in the root, resembling 
Clivia. The leaves of our plant are not linear nor rigid, like 
Clivia, but are linear-lanceolate and stout, and exhibit not only 
the longitudinal -nerves, but some of the stronger transverse 
partitions ; like those of Clivia, they are perennial. In strong 
plants they come up from the centre in series of four to five at 
once, quickly succeeding each other; and about the time that 
the first of the new series is matured, the flower-stem is pro- 
truded between the outer one of these and the last of the next 
older series. The new leaves are of a rather brighter green than 
the old ones. The flower-stem is flattened, about a foot long, and 
supports an umbel of twelve to fifteen pedunculate flowers, at 
first enveloped in a sheath, composed of membranous and mem- 
branous-margined bracts. The stamens and style, when the 
flowers begin to open, are decidedly declining ; but the expan- 
sion of the flowers carries the upper stamens a little out of this 
position, and spreads the whole of them. So far as we have 
seen, but one ovale in each cell swells. Once, one in each of 
two cells was matured, and the third was abortive. In two 
other instances only one in one cell matured, and those of the 
other cells were abortive. I did not examine minutely the ori- 
ginal number of rudimentary ovules. The seeds, being valuable 
to us, were not cut, so as to examine their internal structure ; 
but their size was that of a smallish horse-bean, and, though less 
rugged than those of Crinum, decidedly ‘ bulbiform,’ at least so 
both William Wood and myself considered them. They were 
sown immediately, under the idea that they would not keep, 
and they quickly pushed up each a leaf. The capsule turned of 
