Tas. 6049, . 
SONERILA Bensont. 
Native of the Madras Peninsula. 
Nat. Ord. Metastomacka—Tribe SoNERILEA. 
Genus Sonertta, Roxb. ; (Benth. and Hook. J. Gen. Pl., vol. i. p. 758). 
Sonertta Benson; herbacea, fere glaberrima, ramosa, caule erecto ramisque 
crassis obscure 4-gonis, foliis petiolatis ovatis acutis serratis sub 
7-nerviis, cymis multifloris, pedunculo valido, calycis tubo ovoideo 
6-costato scaberulo, limbi lobis 3-parvis rotundatis subsqualibus, 
petalis late ovato-orbiculatis acutis dorso carinatis, carina ciliolata, sta- 
minibus 6, antheris acuminato-rostratis. 
Colonel Benson procured seeds of this plant from the 
Western Ghauts of Malabar, I believe, which he transmitted 
to Messrs. Veitch, who forwarded the specimen here figured 
to Kew. It so closely resembles the S. elegans, Wight (Tab. 
nost. 4978), that I am in much doubt as to the propriety of 
keeping it distinct, notwithstanding its remarkable character 
of hexandrous flowers, a condition which obtains in only 
two other species of this large genus, which numbers upwards 
of fifty species, all of them Indjan or Malayan. From S. 
elegans it further differs in the smaller and more shortly- 
petioled leaves, which are glabrous, in the 6-ribbed calyx- 
tube, and much smaller flowers. From S&S. speciosa, Zenk. 
(Tab. nost. 5026), a very similar plant, and from the same 
region, it also differs in the hexandrous flower, small petals, 
their paler colour, and the ribbed calyx-tube. me 
The Sonerilas are beautiful plants, inhabitants of humid, 
cool, shady mountain regions of India and the Malayan 
Islands, often growing on mossy rocks and tree trunks. 
Though easily raised and flowered, they have hitherto proved 
to be very difficult of continued cultivation, partly no doubt 
from being kept in too hot and damp a condition, but no less 
to their soft and succulent stems, which rapidly decay in 
AuGuUsT Ist, 1873. 
