353 
Notes on the RooaEE of Kumaon, MEGACARPHA POLYANDRA; by 
GEORGE BENTHAM, EsQ,, F.L.S. 
When Captain R. Strachey and my much-lamented friend the late — - 
Mr. J. E. Winterbottom first returned from their Himalayan travels, 
they mentioned to me as one of the greatest curiosities amongst the 
numerous botanical treasures they had brought home, a Polyandrous 
Cruciferous plant. Hoping that so very abnormal a condition of the 
parts of the flower might tend to elucidate the much-disputed morpho- 
logy of the Order, I obtained from them the loan of their specimens of 
this Roogee from Kumaon, as well as of a somewhat similar plant which 
Mr. Winterbottom had gathered in the valley of the Kishnagunga, 
where also he had met with the true Roogee at a greater elevation. A 
very slight examination prevented any hesitation in referring these 
plants, not only to the Order of Crucifere, but to the well-marked 
. South Siberian genus Megacarpea; notwithstanding the multiplication 
of stamens, which would, in any artificial system, have removed them 
far away. But all my endeavours to trace any symmetry in the ar- 
rangement of the additional stamens, or to detect any indication of 
their morphological origin, proving at that time fruitless, I returned 
the specimens, suggesting for those of the Roogee, which were alone in 
a perfect state, the specific name of Aegacarpea polyandra, to which 
my friends agreed, and which, although not then published, has since E 
been adopted. iE 
In the meantime, seeds of the same plant were (in 1849) transmitted — 
by Colonel Madden from Kumaon, to the Glasnevin Botanic Garden, - 
near Dublin, and were there raised by Mr. Moore, the curator. They | 
speedily germinated, and attained a great size, but without flowering 
until early in the present year, when, towards the end of April, Mr. 
Moore kindly transmitted beautiful specimens, laden with flowers, to 
Sir William Hooker at Kew, to Dr. Lindley at the Hortieultural So- : 
ciety, and to Dr. Balfour in Edinburgh. Both Dr. Hooker and myself 
took the opportunity of examining a considerable number of buds 
various stages of development, as well as expanded flowers, but again failed 
in detecting any regularity or symmetry in the arrangement, A es 
the number of stamens, twelve or sixteen, was an exact multiple of that 
of the petals or sepals. Dr. Lindley indeed believed he had found 
traces of an arrangement in two distinct series, each double in number. 
VOL. VIL ss 
