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XIV. An Account of some new Species of Piper, with a fen- tur- 

 sonj Observations on the Genus, By Mr. John Vaughan Thomp- 

 son. Communicated by the Right Honourable Lord Seaforth, 

 F.R.S. and L.S. 



Read June % 1807. 



Of this extensive and highly natural genus a less intimate 

 knowledge is in general possessed by the European botanist 

 than of most others in which so many plants of interest occur. 

 This circumstance is to be attributed not only to the plants of 

 this genus being all natives of tropical climates, but also to the 

 very strong resemblance of most of the shrubby species to each 

 other, and the impossibility of preserving, by the usual methods, 

 such as are herbaceous and succulent. To obviate this diffi- 

 culty attending the investigation of the species of the latter 

 description, I had proposed, when in the West Indies, to make 

 drawings of all that I should meet with ; but my professional 

 occupations prevented me from carrying this intention into exe- 

 cution so completely as to enable me as yet to lay them before 

 the public. Among the sketches at that time made are the two 

 which accompany this paper, and which, the species appearing 

 to me as nondescript, I conceived might not be unacceptable to 

 the Linnean Society. 



Throughout this family the inflorescence is disposed in a scaly 

 spike, or, more properly, a catkin ; in most of the species close 



and 



