386 Mr. KippisT on Jansonia, a new Genus o/'Leguminosae. 



men in his possession, I found no difficulty in satisfying myself that the two 

 plants were generically distinct ; the calyx in Leptosema being bibracteate, 

 and composed of two nearly equal lips, the upper very slightly bifid, the vex- 

 illum scarcely unguiculate, the wings* about equal in length to the keel, 

 and the carinal suture of the legume distinctly injiexed. The inflorescence is 

 likewise very different in the two plants: in Leptosema the flowers are di- 

 stinctly pedicellate, alternate, and disposed in a densely-crowded raceme, 

 rather than a capitulum ; whereas in Jansonia they are perfectly sessile, 

 arranged in a verticillate manner round a common axis, which is slightly 

 prolonged beyond the point whence the flowers spring in the form of a short 

 mucro. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XVL 



Fig. a. Capitulum, with its bracts expanded, and three of the flowers removed. 



b. Calyx, with the stamens adhering to its base. 



c. Standard. 



d. One of the wings. 



e. Keel. 



/. Germen. 



g. Germen, laid open. 



h. Germen, magnified. 



* The wings, which (apparently from their contracted upper portions having been broken off in the 

 flowers examined by him) are described by Mr. Bentham as " vexillo subsequilongae," are in reality 

 distinctly longer than the vexillum, and fully equal in length to the keel, described as " alis longior et 

 latior." 



P.S. — Since this paper has been in print I have received the final part of Dr. Lehmann's Plantae Preissianse, in which 

 (vol. ii. 'p. 206) Dr. Meisner has described, apparently for the first time, under the name of Cryptosema, a plant which I 

 have no doubt will prove identical with my genus Jansonia. 



Although the title-page to the second volume of ' Plants Preissianse ' bears date ' 1846-7,' and the preface ' Nov. 1847,' 

 it is evident, from an advertisement on the cover of that part of the work in which Cryptosema is described, that it was 

 not published before May 1848. A brief report of my paper, however, had appeared in the Gardener's Chronicle of 

 May 8th, 1847, and a somewhat fuller notice, indicating the principal characteristics of the genus, and its nearest affini- 

 ties, in the Athenscum of May 15th. The essential character in Latin was given in the Proc. Linn. Soc, No. 33, issued 

 Sept. 11, 1847, and reprinted in the Ann. Nat. Hist, for March following. There can therefore, I apprehend, be no 

 question that the name Cryptosema must be suppressed in favour of that of Jansonia. — U.K. 



