SUBMITTED BY BARON VON MUELLER, K.C.M.G. 421 



petioles densely beset with lax spreading compressed hair ; 

 cyme dichotomously branched, many-flowered, glabrous ; bracteoles 

 comparatively large, quite petaloid, roundish, situated closely 

 under the calyx, entire, deciduous, as well as the calyx-lobes and 

 petals rosy-red ; lobes of the calyx petaloid, renate-orbicular ; 

 petals of the staminate flowers two, of the pistillate flowers one ; 

 lanceolate- or ovate-elliptical; stamens i-ather numerous (25-30). 

 anthers roundish with cuneate base ; filaments connate only near 

 their base ; styles three, very short, almost free ; lobes of the 

 stigmas much twisted ; fruit three-celled ; membranes from two of 

 its angles almost dimidiate-orbicular, the membrane from the 

 third angle nearly as broad as its own length, almost truncate at 

 the summit, but thence outward not acutely protracted, all three 

 appendages somewhat rigid, extending at both ends beyond the 

 fruit-cells, but only slightly decurrent ; placental plates two in 

 each cavity of the fruit ; seeds very minute, almost ovate, pale- 

 brownish, somewhat furrowed. 



In the vicinity of the Aird-River (Theodore Be van, Esq.). 



This handsome plant, which should readily enter into horticul- 

 ture, has been chosen to perpetuate in the vegetation of the great 

 Papuan Island also the memory of the Rev. Mr. Sharpe, who 

 recently succumbed as a martyr of Christianity, while carrying the 

 gospel to the wild regions of New Guinea. 



Bego7iia Sharpeana agrees with £. sinuata to some extent in the 

 form of its leaves, in its inflorescence, in the size of its flowers 

 and in the form of its anthers ; but the petioles are not glabrous, 

 the leaves are larger and far more inequilateral, the petals of the 

 fruit-bearing flowers seem always reduced to one, the styles are 

 three in number and so the fruit cells, the appendages of the fruit 

 are much more unequal, reach beyond the cavities and are angular 

 at the summit ; besides all this the occurrence of a pair of broad 

 petaloid bracteoles under the flowers is quite unusual in the genus 

 Begonia. This new species should systematically be placed in 

 the section Knesebeckia near B. scutata. The characteristics of the 

 stem and root remain as yet unknown, so the stipules and the 



