Mr. Miers on some new Brazilian Plants 
glabrous, subhyaline or opake: root consisting of a subligneous, some- 
what fleshy, irregularly fusiform tuber, covered with numerous imbricate, 
obovate, acute, whitish, reticulated scales, fringed witb long cilia: the 
root also throws out numerous threadlike branching fibres of considerable 
length. Stem erect, slender, cylindrical, subflexuose, Spirally twisting, 
white, of rather softish texture, about ten inches in height, sometimes 
simple, less frequently branched. Branchlets erect, furnished at distant 
intervals with minute bracteiform leaves, and all terminated by a double 
spike of flowers. Leaves alternate, obovate, with acute tips, entire, reti- 
culate, without any longitudinal nerve, erect and adpressed against the 
stem, about a line long, white, bearing a resemblance to small bractes, - 
persistent, and distant about half, or rarely an inch, from each other. 
Racemes double, with alternate simple pedicellate flowers; pedicels first 
ascending, then recurved, so that each flower is pendent, four times the 
length of the bractes, three times the length of the flower at maturity, 
each furnished with a bracte similar in size and form to the stem-leaves, 
always either lateral or opposite, and usually a little below the origin of 
each pedicel. Perianthium adnate to the ovarium at base, above tubular, 
contracted below the mouth; border six-cleft, three segments or sepals 
being more exterior, and overlapping the alternating inner segments or 
petals in æstivation, white, persistent and withering, but deciduous on 
the bursting of the capsule. Sepals oblong, acute, erect. Petals oboyate, 
somewhat smaller, shorter and rounder than the sepals, erect, concave, 
whitish, and often deciduous. Stamens three, arising from below the 
centre of each petal; filament, or what may rather be considered as con- 
nective, an uncinate, projecting, fleshy process, forming a sort of very 
small pouch attached to the perianth, and on its margin, on each side of 
the point, are Suspended two distinct parallel anther-cells, which are 
ovate and rounded, somewhat two-lobed, attached by their back, of a 
dos yellow or almost white, bursting transversely across the middle, and 
displaying the pollen, which is of a dark yellow colour, composed of 
closely-packed somewhat waxy granules, coarser than the ordinary grains 
oP ollen, and approximating in appearance to the pollinia of Orchideæ. 
Ovarium inferior, urceolate, white, hyaline, unilocular, with three parietal 
