156 Mr. Gardner's Description o/'Peltophylluin, 



tube seems to be formed by the folding backwards of the margins of tlie acu- 

 minated portion of the perigonium, and their subsequent union. In my plant 

 nothing of this structure is to be seen ; the tails are perfectly plain and conti- 

 nuous with the broader part; there are no pores, and the entire segment forms 

 one uniform mass of cellular tissue, which in the mesial line is a little more 

 dense, but not so much so as in Triuris ; and the cells, like those of Triuris, 

 present those unabsorbed cytoblasts or nuclei which are so well seen in Cactece 

 and Orchidece. The pistilla, as in Triuris, are numerous ; but in place of being 

 subulate, are thickened a little towards their apices, and obliquely truncated. 



Mr. Miers found no leaves in connexion with his plant. My specimens 

 were found growing under some small trees, in a rather moist sandy situation, 

 where there was but little herbaceous vegetation. Near each of the flower- 

 bearing stems which were collected, I found also, within an inch or two of it, 

 a most curious little leaf, the lamina of which is nearly orbicular, with an 

 apiculus at what appears to be its apex, strongly reticulated, with the primary- 

 veins disposed very much like those of Nelumbium speciosum, or rather like 

 those of some of the scandent species of Cissampelos, peltately borne upon a 

 petiole about two inches long, or equal in height with the flowering stem ; but 

 from the hurried manner in which I was obliged to collect the few specimens 

 I possess, I could not ascertain what was the underground connexion of the 

 leaves and flower-stems, though it would have been a most important matter 

 to have done so, if any such exists. These leaves are solitary, and arise ex- 

 centrically from a small fleshy tube, from the base of which proceed a few root- 

 lets, somewhat pellucid, either glabrous, or covered with short villi. Nearly 

 the lower half of the petiole is enveloped in a membranous longitudinally stri- 

 ated sheath, and this is again surrounded by the remains of two or three others 

 of a similar nature. Now, as there is no tube at the base of the scape, and as 

 the lower part of it, that is, the underground portion of it, takes something of 

 a horizontal direction, and as the tube connected with the leaf does so also, it 

 is very probable that they are connected with each other : at least this is more 

 likely than to suppose that both the scape and the leaf arise from the same 

 point but at different times. The nature of the sheaths, moreover, which sur- 

 round the base of the petiole, so different from the few scales which exist at 

 the bottom of the scape, is quite against the latter supposition. The scapes 



