536 Mr. MIERS on some new Brazilian Plants 
to the genus Burmannia. The plants I am about to describe will be found 
to possess entirely the habit of Burmannia in their thickened rhizoma with 
branehing fibres, an erect stem almost naked, or at most furnished with a few 
bracteiform leaves, and terminal flowers with a tubular petaloid perianthium, 
having a six-parted border composed of three sepals and three petals; sta- 
mens three, almost sessile in the mouth of the tube of the perianthium below 
the petals; anther-cells disjoined, opening transversely ; style simple; three 
stigmata; capsule surmounted by the withered perianth bursting irregularly ; 
and seeds minute, resembling those of Orchidee. Burmannia, however, pos- 
sesses a trilocular capsule, with numerous seeds attached to a central 
placenta formed by the united margins of the dissepiments, while in all my 
plants the capsule is always one-celled, the seeds being attached to three 
thickened parietal placentæ,—a difference of no small amount. They vary 
moreover from Burmannia in the mode of dehiscence of the capsule, and in 
other respects, as will shortly appear. 
Before entering on the description of the plants which form the subject of 
this paper, I will notice those before-mentioned recorded by Mr. Nuttall and 
Dr. Blume. That of the former is described in the “ Journal of the Academy 
of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,” vii. p. 64, under the name of Apteria 
setacea. Having seen it only in a dried state, Mr. Nuttall was not able 
to ascertain the particular structure of the stamens, but he describes it as 
having a similar petaloid perianthium, without the winged appendages of 
Burmannia, an inferior ovary, a simple style, a three-lobed stigma, an erect 
stem with a few scattered bracteiform leaves: the difference from Burmannia, 
however, is striking in the structure of the capsule; for instead of its being tri- 
locular with central placentation, it is unilocular with parietal placentation. 
Dr. Blume’s plants are described in his Enumeratio Plantarum Save. 
Gymnosiphon, from its unilocular capsule and parietal placentation, will 
arrange with the plants which I am about to describe. In regard to Gony- 
anthes, I confess that I could not clearly comprehend that author’s definition 
of it until I had examined some species of the genus. The following is his 
charaeter, slightly modified from my own observations :— 
