long, furrowed, with one or two small lanceolate bractee, 
and bearing a single large showy flower. Involucre long, 
cylindrical, clothed with numerous rather lax scales, which 
are ovato-oblong, the lower ones acute and reflexed, the 
upper ones erect and obtuse. Florets of the circumference 
female, about sixteen, forming a ray, each composed of a 
very long slender tube, two-lipped at the extremity; the 
outer-lip a beautiful purple colour, ligulate, tridentate : 
the inner one pale, cut into two deep, revolute, filiform 
lacinie: the mouth furnished with five filiform processes, 
or abortive stamens. Germen oblong: Style long: Stigma 
cleft. Pappus three-fourths of the length of the floret, 
feathery. Florets of the disk perfect, tubular, yellowish, 
five-toothed, at length breaking into two or five equal 
revolute segments, or more frequently, into three unequal 
ones, the broadest one (three united segments) tridentate. 
Anthers long, greenish, protruded, each with two long 
sete at the base. Germen, Pappus, and Style, as in the 
florets of the circumference. 
We rejoice in having the opportunity to commence the 
New Series of the Botanical Magazine with so interesting 
a subject as the present plant, a novel species of a genus, 
of which, although twelve species exist in our Herbaria, 
not one had ever previously been cultivated in Great Bri- 
tam. The individual now under consideration is a native 
of Brazil, and was communicated to the Royal gardens at 
Kew, by M. Parmentier of Paris. There it blossomed in 
September, 1826; and from a specimen kindly given to 
me, by Mr. Arron, aided by an excellent drawing in that 
gentleman’s collection, the annexed figure and description 
were made. 
Four species only of Murisia, with pinnated leaves, have 
been hitherto described. M. grandiflora, Clematis, pedun- 
cularis, and viciefolia, and these, as well as the simple- 
leaved ones, are all natives of the western side of South 
America. The one to which the present plant is most nearly 
allied, is, perhaps, M. peduncularis ; but that has the scales 
of the involucre all imbricated, and the larger segments of 
the corollules of the ray oval. 
The whole plant turns black in drying. We have re- 
ceived native specimens from the neighbourhood of Rio 
Janeiro, from Mr. Harris of that place, as well as more re- : 
cently, from our valued friend, Mr. Burcnett, who is now 
exploring, as a Naturalist, that highly interesting country. 
Fig.1. Floret of the Circumference. 2. Ditto of the Disk deprived of the 
Pappus. 3. Base of an Anther.—Magnified. 
