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X. Description of a new Genus of Plants from Brazil. By John Miers, Esq., 



F.L.S. 



Read March 2nd, 1841. 



On my last visit to the Organ Mountains in February 1838, prior to my 

 departure from Rio de Janeiro, I observed growing in a green sward of Jun- 

 germannia, upon the banks of the river Paquequ6r, within the influence of an 

 atmosphere rendered extremely humid by the fine spray from an impending 

 waterfall, a minute plant, of a very transparent texture and of a singular struc- 

 ture, a notice of which I now beg to offer to the consideration of the Linnean 

 Society. It is constantly unisexual, the male and female plants growing near 

 to each other in the same spot : its root consists of several branched fibres ; 

 and its stem, composed of cellular tissue, is erect, cylindrical, striately ribbed, 

 and about an inch in height, presenting near its base two or three small, 

 distant, bract-like, acute, adpressed leaves. The inflorescence is either soli- 

 tary and terminal, or divides into two or three one-flowered branches pro- 

 ceeding from the axil of an obovate bract larger than the leaves : the bracts 

 are somewhat spathe-like, and somewhat amplexicaul at the base, with an 

 acute point, enwrapping the bud in its young state : it withers, but is persistent. 

 Each peduncle is erect, striated, and one quarter to three-eighths of an inch in 

 length, supporting a solitary flower. The flower in bud appears like a three- 

 sided cone with rounded angles, exhibiting near the apex three pore-like minute 

 apertures, which are openings into as many long coiled tubes, easily distin- 

 guishable through the semi-diaphanous perianthium. This perianthium is 

 persistent, and is composed of three distinct obovate segments, concave in 

 the bud, with valvate aestivation, the sutures being alternate with the rounded 

 angles : when expanded it is fully patent, with the margins laterally reflected, 

 and from just below tlie apex of each segment, on the inner surface, proceeds a 

 hollow capillary horn of three times the length of the segments, which, though 

 coiled in aestivation, as before mentioned, is quite patent and extended when 



