650 GRIGGS: SPECIES OF HELICONIA 
large, the internodes of the rachis shorter and the bracts more 
numerous. The relatively short rachis and the long peduncle, 
with the comparatively large number of branch-bracts, suggest 
that this plant is near those species with a head of densely imbri- 
cated bracts for which the section 7aeniostrobus was erected. 
4° Heliconia tortuosa sp. nov. 
Whole plant about 3.5 metersin height (trunk 1.75 m., petioles 
75 cm.): leaves about a meter long, 20-30 cm. broad, rounded 
and oblique at the base, abruptly short-acuminate at the tip, bright 
green and glabrous on both sides except that the midrib, below, 
and the petiole bear more or less coarse matted brown hair: in- 
florescence brilliant scarlet, erect or nearly so; peduncle long, 
stiff, aligned with the stem ; lowest bract often developing a large 
blade, sometimes nearly as large as the other leaves; rachis 
extremely flexuose; the few bracts (about half a dozen) distant 
from each other by about their own depth, not truly distichous 
but arranged. in a sort of spiral with an angle of about 120° be- 
tween them, lowest about 12.5 cm. long, 5 cm. broad ; the upper 
nearly as large, subovate, triangular, straight-sided, not tapering, 
with a blunt frayed point ; rachis between the upper bracts attain- 
ing its full extension almost as soon as they separate from the 
head formed by those above them which have not yet opened out ; 
bases of bracts at least, and rachis covered with matted brown 
wool: flowers green, 5-7 cm. long, projecting above the edges of 
the branch-bracts ; flower-bracts two thirds as long as the flowers ; 
floral parts glabrous except for an occasional hair. (PL. 29, F- I.) 
“No. 17 ; photographs 3670 and 4130. Heliconia tortuosais the 
only representative of the genus common about Sepacuité, but in 
the valley which the plantation occupies it is one of the most con- 
spicuous plants ; it grows everywhere except in the thickest 
woods where the light is too weak. Donnell Smith, x. 7828, 
Pansamala, Alta Vera Paz, alt. 3800 feet, April, 1899. The bracts 
are longer and narrower than in our specimen. 
Hleliconia tortuosa is very similar to H. villosa K1., from Colom- 
bia, or at least to the printed descriptions of it. The similarity 15 
due, I suspect, more to lack of detail in the descriptions than - 
resemblance in the plants. Petersen’s plate in the ‘“ Flora Brasi- 
liensis’’ shows a very different plant from the present and empha- 
sizes the discrepancies between the two. The Guatemalan species 
differs from the Colombian in having (1) a peduncle straight and 
