VoL. 30 No. 12 
BULLETIN 
_ TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
Bes DECEMBER, 1903 
On Some Species of Heliconia 
By Rosert F. Griccs 
(WITH PLATES 29 AND 30) 
Heliconia occupies in America the place in plant society that is 
filled by the banana and its congeners in the Old World tropics. 
_ Its anatomy is similar to that of its better-known relative. Like 
the banana it is a very difficult subject for the botanical collector. 
The parts are both thick and succulent and of such size as to 
‘make it impossible to represent the plant at all adequately on an 
herbarium sheet. As knowledge of plants from remote regions 
_has been largely dependent on herbarium specimens, it is not diffi- 
cult to appreciate that He/iconia has been an unsatisfactory genus 
to work on. Only once before the present study was undertaken 
has it been studied to any extent in the field. This fact accounts 
for most of the innovations suggested in the present paper. 
Although the genus has been monographed several times 
‘within recent years, as far as practicable recourse was had to orig- 
inal literature in determination and comparison. Appended to the 
paper is a list of the papers consulted. It includes the original 
descriptions of twenty-six of the twenty-nine recognized species. 
Though no pretension is made to bibliographic completeness, it 
May serve as the beginning of a guide to anyone who desires to 
_take up the study of the genus, as it is believed that with a few 
e €xceptions most of the important literature is cited. 
All our plants, except the Porto Rican Heleconia Borinquena, 
Came froma region in eastern Guatemala, which centers in Messrs. 
, Owen and Champney’s coffee inca Sepacuité, a few miles north of 
: [The preceding number of the BULLETIN, Vol. 30, No, 11, for November, 1903 
(a0: ree: pl. 23-28), was issued 4 N 1903.] : 
641 
