INVENTORY. 



40389. Pyrus communis L. Malaceae. Pear. 



From Novospasskoe, Russia. Presented by Mr. A. D. Woelkoff, director, 

 Jardin Experimental de l'Ecole Horticulture, Cholmy. Received April 7, 

 1915. 



Var. caucasica. 



40390. Phaseolus vulgaris L. Fabaceae. Bean. 



From Foxboro, Mass. Presented by Rev. Father C. N. Field. Received 

 April 2, 1915. 

 " Flowering beans, grown at St. Augustine's Children's Farm, Foxboro, last 

 year. Quite pretty bunches of flowers, the seeds of several kinds of which were 

 brought me from Jamaica." (Field.) 



40391. Camoensia maxima Welw. Fabacese. 



From Loanda, Angola, Africa. Presented by Mr. J. Gossweiler. Received 

 April 7, 1915. 



" The plant upon which this genus was founded was discovered in Angola by 

 the late Dr. Welwitsch when in the Portuguese service, and by him it was in 

 consequence named after the famous Lusitanian poet. It is a climbing shrub, 

 ' common in the dense forests of the Golungo Alto, adorning the loftiest trees of 

 the outskirts with its splendid bunches of pendulous milk-white flowers, tinged 

 with gold on the edge of the petals.' 



"The specimen before us is slightly puberulous, with long-stalked trifolio- 

 late-acuminate leaves, minute stipules, and close racemes of flowers, which 

 under cultivation are erect rather than pendulous, as originally described and 

 figured, but which, when growing over tall trees, as described by Dr. Welwitsch, 

 might well be pendent, as he described them. The inflorescence and outer por- 

 tion of the calyx are thickly covered with dense, felted, coarse brown hairs. 

 The bracteoles are about half an inch long, lanceolate, deciduous. The calyx 

 tube, measuring about 2 inches in length, is leathery, cylindric, curved, dividing 

 into a relatively short, irregularly 5-lobed limb, of which the thick segments are 

 imbricate in the bud. The five petals, which are twice the size of the calyx, all 

 have long white, narrow stalks, and all expand above into a spoon-shaped limb, 

 somewhat papery in texture, plicate and crumpled in the bud, reticulate in vena- 

 tion, and edged with a narrow border of rich orange yellow, which Mr. Wood- 

 all describes as tipped with gold lace, so delicate and fairylike is the frilled 

 edging. The uppermost petal, or standard, is much larger than the others, and 

 has the inner surface of the disk as well as the margins Hushed with yellow. 

 The side petals, or wings, are at first uprighl and rigid within the standard, but, 

 as the artist remarked while making Ins sketch, they are endowed with elasticity 

 when touched by the pencil, and after the discharge of the pollen they become 

 drooping. The two lower petals and the stamens are also at first quite rigid, 

 but subsequently fall. The snow-white stamens an 1 shorter than the petals, in 

 in number, forming a tube at the base, filamentous above. The narrow, angular 



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