670 PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA. HellCOniu. 



four or five inches long, smooth, striated lengthways with 

 small veins, colour when ripe a mixture of green, yellow and 

 pink, three-celled. Seeds, rather nuts* a few in each cell, 

 oval, size of a field bean. Integument a perfect, hard, black, 

 substantial nut, divided into three transverse cells, the upper- 

 most and lowermost filled with spongy matter, the middle one 

 is occupied by the friable white perhperm, in the middle of 

 the base thereof is lodged the small, simple, short, sub-obco- 

 nic embryo, the whole nearly as in Gcerlner's Sapienlum, 

 Carp. i. 28. t.Mtf. 1. 



HELICONIA. Sckreb. gen. N. 403. 

 Spathes alternate. Calyx none. Coral six-petalled. Nec- 

 tary one leaved. Germ inferior, three-celled ; cells with one 

 or more seeds; attachment inferior. Pericarp three-celled, 

 three-valved, seed solitary, or several. 



J. H. buccinata. R. 



Stemless. Leaves lanceolar, glossy. Spadix central, 

 flexuose, pubescent ; spathes from six to eight, bifarious, di- 

 verging, each embracing from six to ten pedicelled flowers. 

 Nectary oblong; cells of the germ one-seeded. 



Folium buctinatuin. Humph. Amb. v. 141. t. (>2.J\ 2. 



From Amboyna plants were brought to the Botanic gar- 

 den at Calcutta, in 1798, where in seven years they began to 

 blossom during the hot season, viz. April and May ; but have 

 not yet ripened their seed in Bengal. 



Root consisting of numerous, strong, fleshy fibres, like the 

 common banana, and still more permanent than in any spe- 

 cies of Musa known to me. Stem no other than the united 

 sheathing- part of the petioles, except when in flower the scape 

 then rises through their centre. Leaves in numerous bundles 

 from the same root, forming an immense, beautiful bush ; bi- 

 farious, petioled, lanceolate, entire, polished, acute, with di- 

 verging- veins, from two to four feet long, and one foot 



