]62 DIANDRIA TRIGYNIA. Piper. 



from each joint, which scarcely rise four inches above the 

 surface on which the plant grows. Stems thread-like, 

 pubescent, with four or five furrows ; branches once or twice 

 sub-divided into small opposite branchlets. Leaves gener- 

 ally quatern, rarely tern, four or five lines in length, obtuse, 

 cuneate at the base, shining and somewhat concave above, 

 with copious short hairs below, slightly ciliated, without 

 veins or ribs, and losing even the three pale-coloured nerves 

 when dry ; the lowest verticils many times, the others two or 

 three times, shorter than the interstices between the joints. 

 Leaves of the young shoots linear-oblong, measuring some- 

 times an inch in length. Petioles very short, villous, erect, 

 with a gland-like body in their axills, villous. Spike terminal, 

 very slender, from an inch to an inch and a half long, round, 

 villous, excavated on its surface with innumerable small pores 

 in which the flowers are lodged, on a peduncle about half its 

 length. 



Obs. All the parts of this elegant little species have a faint 

 pungent taste. I have not been able hitherto to examine its 

 organs of fructification in a satisfactory manner. 



