served to take place in the stigma and style. The outer 
covering of the flower is, perhaps, justly defined, by that 
author, to be bracteas, although its appearance, its close 
proximity to the flower, and the full expansion of the latter 
so soon as the bracteas are laid open, would seem to mili- 
tate against such an opinion; add to which,what we have here 
called the perianth, never, even in bud, covers the organs 
of fructification : and, indeed, though the quinary divisions 
would seem incompatible with its being considered as a 
floral covering ; yet, if we look upon the lower large seg- 
ment, which we may do, as two united, the ternary series 
will be complete. It will be seen by the representation of 
the bud, at fig. 1, that this large (double) segment and a 
smaller one constitute the outer series, as much as the 
remaining three do the inner one*. 
Our plant, in the Glasgow Botanic Garden, which had 
been sent from Valparaiso, by the kindness of our esti- 
mable correspondent, Mr. Cruicxsuanks, flowered readily 
in the stoves, in the month of October, and, perhaps, in 
greater perfection, under a cool frame. At best, however, 
the Ginuiesia must be regarded rather as a curiosity, than 
an ornament. The infloresence bears, at first sight, a most 
striking resemblance to an Orchideous plant ; its bulb, 
foliage, seed, and seed vessel, to the Asphodelee ; and near 
this latter order, if not among it, I think it should be 
placed. Its situation, in the artificial arrangement, may be 
hear Sisyrinchium, on account of the united stamens. 
* Should this suggestion prove correct, and if the double perianth, or, as 
tr. Livpiey calls it, the third series to the usual senary division of Mono- 
cotyledones, be to great an anomaly; then, may we not consider that the three 
inner bodies, with their occasional tooth-like appendages, as glandular excres- 
_ Cenees, arising from the united base of the stamens? ‘Their whole structure 
's cellular, destitute, as Mr. Linpuey observes, of spiral vessels, and would 
Seem to fayour such a notion: we must otherwise allow, that this supposed 
al covering nevef shelters and protects the stamens and pistils at any 
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