238 BOTANICAL OBJECTS COMMUNICATED 
the fronds are not much unlike Doodia and Woodwardia ; but the ve- 
nation is more simple: and when the fructifications, as is sometimes 
the case, are confined to the costal transverse veins, the appearance is 
that of a Doodia with naked sori. But more generally the sori are ex- 
tended along the lateral veins or veinlets, after the manner of Gymno- 
gramme, and we have seen it extend half-way and more up these veinlets 
in the older specimens, and then we trace an affinity with the Gymno- 
gramme Japonica, Desvaux and Kunze (in Schkuhr's Fil. Suppl. p. 39. 
t. 116),— Dictyogramme, Fée, Gen. Fil. p. 170. t. 15 A. f. 2: but there 
the fructification is all over the veins, and the veins again anastomose 
between the costal veins and the margin. The whole structure seems 
such as to entitle it to be considered a new genus. 
Tas. II. Bowringia insignis, frond :—nat. size. Fig.l. Portion of a 
sterile pinna, to show the venation. 2. Portion of a fertile pinna seen 
from beneath :—magnified. 
« 
Botanical Objects communicated to the Kew Museum, from the AMAZON 
RIVER, in 1851 and 1852, dy RICHARD SPRUCE, Esq. 
(Continued from p. 177.) - 
61. Two wooden spoons, made by Indian fishermen, on the Paraná- 
mirí dos Ramos, a branch of the Amazon communicating with the Rio 
Madeira. The one with the handle-end curved into the semblance of 
a deer's-foot, is made of a soft white wood, much like Sycamore; it is 
produced by a small Apocyneous tree, Plumeria Mulongo, Benth. This 
spoon was made with a knife, aided by a rude pair of compasses. The 
other, carved to resemble a man with a mutilated arm, is made of some 
wood whose name I could not learn. It did duty in my cuisine, under 
the name of Jodo, all the way up the Amazon, without sustaining any 
injury, save losing a piece out of the brim of the hat by a fall. 
62. A piece of wood, from which fire has been drawn by the Indian 
method. ‘This is used exactly as described in ‘Paul and Virginia,’ to 
which may be added, that a notch is cut by the side of the hole in 
which the pointed stick is twirled round, and a piece of linen rag, or 
other combustible, placed underneath to receive the sparks which fall 
down the notch. Any dry and tolerably hard wood will serve for this 
purpose. The piece now sent seems to be the wood of a Clusiaceous 
