NEW GENERA OF CEYLON PLANTS. 269 
their tribute is taken from them, it is true, in an irregular and irritating 
way, but they probably pay not half as large a proportion of taxes as we 
do in England; but every man who has a little royal blood in his veins, 
thinks he has also a right in some particular district also to collect the 
same tribute for his own use and benefit; and it not unfrequently hap- 
pens, that the poor people, who dare not complain, pay two or three 
times over. The old man told us much of his greivances when his 
aristocratic visitors had taken leave. He then showed us his plantation : 
he had plenty of rice, ginger, turmeric, and remarkably large and fine 
capsicums; and he gave us some cucumbers, sugar-canes, and a kind of 
Plantain called Pisang Nipa, from the closely packed fruit bearing a 
distant resemblance to that of the Nipa: it was a good and sweet kind. 
They had here the largest domestic cats I have ever seen, of a dun colour, 
with light blue eyes, and very full in the cheeks, they had the twisted 
tail of all the Malay cats. 
On SPHRAGIDIA and ECCREMANTHUS, two new Genera of Ceylon plants; | 
together with Observations on the Genus HEMICYCLIA, W. et A.; 
dy G. H. K. Tuwarrtes, Eso., F.L.S., Superintendent of the Royal 
Gardens, Peradenia, Ceylon. 
(With two Plates, IX. and X.) 
Nov. Gen. I. SPHRAGIDIA, Zw. Nat. Ord. EvPHOoRBIACEX. 
Tribus Buzee. 
Gen. Char. Flores dioici. Calyx 4—5-partitus, imbricatus, segmentis 
subzqualibus, concavis; 2 externis. Corolla nulla.— Fr. Masc. 
Stamina numerosa, disco plano extus inserta ; filamentis linearibus ; 
antheris oblongis, introrsis, dorso affixis, longitudinaliter dehiscenti- 
bus, loculis basi paullo divergentibus. Ovarit rudimentum minutum, - 
didymum.—Fr. Fam. Stamina nulla. Ovarium liberum, subqua- s 
dratum, basi disco patelleeformi cinctum, biloculare, loculis 2-ovulatis. . 
Ovula collateralia, sub placentee processu magno pendula anatropa. = 
Stylus subnullus. Stigmata 2, plana, discoidea, transverse oblonga. 
Fructus subcarnosus, indehiscens, bilocularis, putamine crustaceo, 
loculis monospermis. Semina orbiculari-compressa, exarillata, pen- 
dula. Embryo orthotropus; radicula brevi, crassa ; cotyledonibus 
planis, foliaceis, albuminis carnosi peripherize attingentibus.—Arbor 
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