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III. Observations on the Tropzeolum péntaphyllum of Lamarck. By Mr. Davo 
Doné Libr. L.S. ; 
Read December 18th, 1832. 
THIS curious plant is a native of the regions bordering on the Rio de la 
Plata, where it appears to be far from rare, as it occurs in most of the collec- 
tions that we have seen from those countries. It was first discovered by 
Commerson; and from the materials collected by that indefatigable natu- 
ralist, Lamarck was enabled to give a figure and description of the species in 
the botanical part of the Encyclopédie Méthodique, under the appellation of 
Tropaolum pentaphyllum,—a name, it will be admitted, misapplied to a plant 
whose leaf is merely deeply lobed. Another figure and description of the same 
plant, but under a different, although no less objectionable name, occurs in 
an academical dissertation on this genus, by Professor Hellenius, and published 
at Abo in 1789, a short time after those by Lamarck had appeared. M. Au- 
guste de Saint-Hilaire has likewise given a figure and description of it in his 
Plantes Usuelles des Brasiliens. Notwithstanding these several authorities, 
the characters of the plant have been hitherto but partially understood; and 
it was not until its recent introduction to the British gardens that the pecu- 
liarities of its structure have been ascertained. In the month of August last, 
while on a visit at Edinburgh to my much-esteemed friend Mr. Neill, to whom 
we are indebted for its introduction, I had the pleasure of seeing this interest- 
ing plant in flower, and subsequently with ripe fruit, which has enabled me to 
determine its claims to be regarded as the type of a new genus. The most 
remarkable peculiarity is in the nature of its fruit, which is a black, juicy 
berry, not unlike, both in appearance and flavour, the Zante grape. Besides 
the reduced number of its petals, a character the importance of which I am 
not disposed to insist much upon, the genus likewise differs in the valvate 
zstivation of its calyx, (a distinction first pointed out by M. Auguste de Saint- 
Hilaire,) that of Tropeolum being imbricate. Neither of these characters has 
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