290 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 
though conspicuous for its size, seems hitherto to have escaped the 
eyes of botanists in its native country; it is not merely an addition to 
the number of the 4roidee, but a new form, participating in the distinc- 
tive characters of two tribes hitherto clearly separated, having the 
flowers of Cryptocoryne, distinguished by the union of the spadix with 
the spathe, and the division of the latter into two chambers, but entirely 
differing from that genus in its free ovaries, in which it exactly re- 
sembles an Arum or Arisæma. The leaf is more like that of a Musa 
or Strelitzia than of any Aroideu, having a stout petiole two feet long, 
and a thick almost coriaceous blade. The opposing stipule, which en- 
closes the corresponding leaf in its earlier stage, is five inches long, 
acuminated from a broad base, with two very sharp keels on its back, 
and a deep furrow between them. The anthers are unlike anything I 
have seen in this family, for instead of opening by terminal pores, each 
loculus is furnished with a long slender tube, and this resembles a flask 
or ancient bottle, from which resemblance I have drawn the generic 
name. The fruit is not berried, but semicapsular*. 
Nat. Ord, EBENACE®. 
HoLoCHILUS, genus novum. 
Flores dioici. Calyx tubulosus, integer, truncatus, in squamis paucis bi- 
fariis imbricatis insidens. Corolla &ubulosa, fere ad medium trifida, 
ealyce triplo longior, lobis ovatis obtusis patentibus. Stamina in 
fl. foem. 6, sterilia, basi corollæ inserta, inter se libera, antheris fila- 
mento duplo brevioribus. Ovarium in fl. fom. hemisphæricum, 
glabrum, 6-loculare, styli 3, erecti, crassiusculi, apice obtusi, ovula in 
loculis solitaria pendentia.—Arbor mediocris, foliis ellipticis vel ob- 
_ longis basi attenuatis apice obtuse acuminatis breve (3 poll.) petiolatis 
coriaceis glabris 4-5 poll. longis 2 poll. latis. Flores albi, minuti 
_ * Mr. Law’s attention, in Bombay, had been called to the same plant, for he says, 
in writing to Mr. Dalzell, “ I had heard there was a plant which grew in abundance 
on the banks of a stream flowing from a sacred spring about forty miles from hence 
(Darwhar), and not found anywhere else in the neighbourhood, the root (rhizome) of 
which is a most deadly poison, and often nsed by the natives for that purpose, 50 
that it has been found necessary to forbid them to gather it. The native name 1$ 
' Vutsunab,” which in Wilson's Sanserit Dictionary is said to be Aconitum ferot, 
roots of which, I had thougbt it possible, might haye been brought from the Hima- 
it prove to be, but your new genus Lagenandra,” 
