and by possessing flat seeds with a wing aril. These 
distinctive features Jed Mr. Franchet to regard the group 
as a distinct genus for which, having regard to the seed, 
he proposed the name Omphalogramma. In P. vinciflora 
there is yet another distinguishing feature which has not 
been looked for so far in its consociates. This is to be 
found in the disposition of the stamens whereof, as 
Professor Bayley Balfour has pointed out, only those on 
the posterior side are erect, the anterior ones being bent 
across the corolla tube, so that all the anthers are 
brought together in a cone at the back of the flower. 
For the introduction of this species to cultivation horti- 
culture is indebted to Messrs. Bees, Limited, for whom 
Mr. G. Forrest obtained its seeds in South-western China 
in 1908. The plant figured is one which was presented 
to Kew, when in flower, by Professor Balfour, with whom 
it blossomed in the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, in 
October 1913. Being doubtfully hardy it has been 
grown at Kew in a cool frame in which it has failed to 
ripen seeds, but where it is still alive and flourishing. 
At Edinburgh the plant flowered for the first time after 
five years; Professor Balfour has found it to thrive best 
when kept well flooded with water under ample drainage 
conditions. The rootstock in this species is very short, 
and appears to be held in the ground only by its large 
Toot fibres. In the wild plant the flowers precede the 
leaves; under cultivation flowers and leaves appear 
almost at the same time. 
Description.—Herb, perennial; rootstock abbreviated. 
Leaves usually oblong, obtuse, up to 34 in. long by 1} in. 
wide, upper surface sparingly clothed with short, erect, 
whitish, minutely gland-tipped hairs intermixed with 
golden yellow glands ; the lower surface paler, with hairs 
like those of the upper surface but less plentiful; lateral 
nerves oblique, about 6 on each side the midrib, anasto- 
mosing near the margin, visible above ; margin entire or 
sometimes obscurely crenulate. Scape 1-flowered, when in 
blossom usually about 3 in. long, sometimes longer, green 
with a purplish upper end, clothed with spreading hairs ; 
whitish below, reddish above, all hairs tipped with red 
glands. Calyx green, deeply 6-lobed, segments linear- 
