12 TRIURIDEZ AND BURMANNIACE/E 
3. Sciaphila corymbosa, sp. n. ; racemo in corymbum contracto, perian- 
thio imberbi, stylo clavato-penicillato ovarium vix superante. 
This is a purplish species, about the size of S. albescens, or rather 
. larger, and distinguished from all the genus by the inflorescence» The 
pedicels are all erowded at the summit of the stem, so as to form, be- 
fore the flowers expand, a little head, which becomes a corymb as the 
pedicels lengthen. The scale-like leaves, and especially the bracts, are 
larger and broader than in all other species, those of the male flowers 
being 2 or 3 lines long and a line broad, almost to the apex. The 
flowers and carpels are of the size of those of S. albescens, but the 
styles are short, as in S. purpurea. The perianth, always six-cleft, is 
whitish outside, but purple inside, like the rest of the plant. In one 
young male bud there appeared within the anthers a fleshy mass re- 
sembling an inner series of three imperfect anthers, or perhaps more 
probably an abortive rudiment of carpels. Other flowers showed only 
the three usual anthers, without any central mass. 
Of BUvRMANNIACEZ Mr. Spruce gathered eleven species, all of them 
coloured like the Triuridee and Foyrie, with their leaves reduced to - 
similarly coloured scales, although two of them belong to the genus 
Burmannia, in which the generality of species, Asiatic as well as Ame- 
rican, have the root-leaves at least more or less developed and green. 
Of these two leafless species, one is the common delicate B. capitata, 
whose wide geographical range extends from the southern states of North 
America, through the West Indies and Guiana, over nearly the whole 
of Brazil. Mr. Spruce found. it in peaty soil, between tufts of long 
grass, on the Igarapé de Irurá, near Santarem. The other one is new, 
. . from the sandy woods along the Rio Uaupés, with the following cha- 
.raeters :-— 
. Burmannia tenella, sp. n. ; fliformis, foliis squameeformibus minutis 
~ linearibus appressis, floribus solitariis vel in cyma bifida paucis dis- 
sitis, perianthii angulis alatis——Herba semipedalis, caule simplici v. 
rarius diviso. Sguame paucz in parte inferiore omnes appresse, vix 
lineam longs. ores albidi, laciniis apicalibus luteis, magnitudine 
B. biflore, nune solitarii, nunc terni lateralibus longe pedicellatis, 
nune rarius pluries secus ramos cymz bifidze subsessiles, remoti; ale 
oblong, angulo exteriore aeuto-adscendente. Antherarum connecti- 
vum apice cornubus duo brevibus basi membranula obovata appen- 
 dieulatum. Capsula trilocularis et semina omnino Burmanni. 
