This plant has great refemblance to the figure of Puumier, 
above quoted, from which Linnaus probably adopted his 
nudicaulis ; yet we dare not confider them as certainly the fame ; 
and, at all events, the name of xudicaulis is fo very inapplicable 
to a plant that has no ftalk, but a fcape only, and that too 
clothed at the inferior part with large braétes, that the original 
one of Prumrer feems every way preferable. In the Bankfian 
Mufeum, there is a drawing of a nearly-related {pecies, to which 
Linnvs’s name of zudicaulis is applied. ‘The flowers of this 
are much fmaller and white, and the leaves are truncated with 
a {mall acumen. 
In our fpecimen, the fcape did not rife fo as to elevate the 
flowers above the braétes, perhaps from a deficiency of heat: in 
one which flowered earlier, the fpike was more lax, and the 
flowers, after deflorefcence, became patent; calyx, corolla, 
and ftamens, perfiftent. | 
This plant, like fome others, both in this genus and in 
Tizrianpstra, holds a quantity of water in the bottom of the 
leaves ; which, it has been afferted, they are never found 
without, even in the hotteft weather, in a tropical country. 
Communicated by the lady of the Right Hon. Gzorce Rost, 
from Cuffnells, where it flowered two fucceffive years, in February 
and March. The mother plant was received from Rio de Janeiro 
fome years ago, and threw off feveral offsets before it flowered, 
which have been treated the fame as the pine apple, till of a good 
fize for flowering, when the pot was taken out of the bark and 
placed upon a fhelf in the flove. 
