248 EXPEDITION UP THE KWORA. 



Hab. Guzerat, Arabia, Senegambia, Egypt. — Guzerat name, "Hur- 



sankur." 



From an old * Hortus Jamaicensis,' it appears that this species was 

 introduced into the West Indies about fifty years ago, and there found 

 to be tuberous-rooted and wingless. In Graham's ■ Catalogue of Bom- 

 bay Plants/ it is stated that the winged species (which I have never 

 seen) is there cultivated in gardens, and eaten in curries by the natives. 

 The natives of Guzerat however have no idea of such a use of the wing- 

 less plant, nor is the winged one known to them. The whole plant is 

 of a pale glaucous-green ; the root is composed of four or five thick 

 fibres; the tubers appear as if they were swellings in the middle 

 of these fibres ; the leaves are 2-3 lines in thickness ; the seeds are 

 oblong, rather pointed at the base, 4-5 lines in length ; the testa dark- 

 brown, and covered on the inside with a layer of minute silver-coloured 

 scales, not unlike those on a moth's wing ; the endopleura is light- 

 brown, smooth, and polished ; but the embryo is perhaps the most re- 

 markable feature, and is hexacotyledonous !, the axis is thickened up- 

 wards from the radicle, and is furnished with three wings, as it were, 

 each wing being composed of one pair of cotyledonary leaves ! 



Cissus edulis, Dalzell ; radice fibrosa, caule quadrangulari lsete tetra- 

 pteris, stipulis lunatis integris, foliis breve petiolatis cordato-ovatis 

 integris serrulatis, umbellis breve pedunculatis, fructu globoso acri 

 1-spermo pisi minoris magnitudine, semine obovato. 



Vitis quadrangularis, Wall, in Wight et Am. Prod. I p. 125. — Wight, 

 Ic. t. 51, excl. Jig. 6. Cissus quadrangularis, Roxb. Ft. hid. i. 

 p. 407. 



Hab. Crescit ubique in India orientali, Roxburgh. 



Second 



We have the pleasure to lay before our readers the following extracts 



Mr 



nist, on board the steamer recently despatched for the further explora- 

 tion of the Kwora. Our first letter is from Mr. Barter, and bears date 



Ship c Camden,' off Monrovia, May 15, 1857. 



Leaving Sierra Leone hurriedly yesterday {en route to Fernando Fo), 

 I could do no more than send a list of the fruits in cask, and living 



