JaNvARY 25, 1908] A CENTURY oF NEw PLANTS 276 
in length, persistent, conspicuously enlarged at the apex; 
fruits ellipsoid, 6 mm. long, about 5 mm. in diameter across 
the middle, shining, rather dry, bright indigo blue, under 
a lens minutely pitted, 3-celled; seeds many in each cell, 
hard, coal black, flattened, irregular in shape, about 2 mm. 
in diameter or wide, minutely pitted, place of attachment 
circular and centrally located on one side. 
Type specimen 9162, A. D. E. Elmer, Lucban, Province 
of Tayabas, Luzon, May, 1907, In stony soil along creek 
bottom at 650 meters near the base of Mount Banahao. 
MARANTACEAE. 
Monophrynium simplex n. sp.—Perennial herbs, 1 to 1.5 
m. high, forming loose tufts composed of small individual 
tuftlets; stems of flowering stalk glabrous, erect, surrounded 
by 2 to 3 radical leaves which are usually a trifle shorter; 
leaf petioles also glabrous, at least the lower one half with | 
prominent sheathing margins which snugly conceal the basal 
portion of the flowering stem, the apical 2 cm. much 
thickened and only suberect; blade 2 to 3 dm. long, about 
one half as wide across the middle, base subcuneate, apex 
tapering into a slender acuminate point, margins entire but 
while drying strongly curving upon the ventral surface, 
submembranous, lucid dark green and glabrous above, paler 
and soft strigose on the nerves beneath, subhorizontal or 
only slightly ascending; nerves numerous, oblique, parallel; 
the leaf subtending the inflorescence usually smaller, the basal 
‘portion of its petiole similarly sheathed and with a thickened 
apical portion. Inflorescence simple, 1, 2, 3, or even 4 dm. 
long, 2 to 3 or even 5-branched from about the middle, the 
longer branches 2 dm. Jong, unbranched, grayish or yellowish 
hairy when young but soon becoming subglabrous, subtended 
by 2 cm. long marcescent bracts, strict but occasionally 
obscurely curved between the flower clusters; flowers about 
6 in each cluster, 1 to 2cm. apart, the outer ones deciduous, 
the middle ones in anthesis, the central in bud, each subtended 
by a single bract; the entire flower cluster subtended by 1.5 
em. long bract which much exceeds the flowers and imbricately 
clasping the rachis toward the base; peduncle of the individual 
flower cluster conspicuously recurved in age, persistent, 1.5 
