* GLOSSOCOMIA ovata. 



Ovate Pouchhell. 



PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 

 Nat. ord. Campanxjlace.'E. 



GLOSSOCOMIA. D. Bon. Flos Codonopseos iuvolucro orbatus caly- 

 cisque laciniis foliaceis. 



G. ovata; pubescens, adscendens, foliis cordato-ovatis petiolatis, calycis la- 

 ciniis obloiigis obtusis reflexis integerrimis. 

 Codonopsis ovata. Benth. in Roijle's I/lustr. 253. t. GD.y. 3. 

 Wablenbergia Roylei. Alj^h. DC. in Prodr. 7. 425. 



There exists in the North of India a race of climbing' or 

 half-climbing, fetid, soft, milky plants, with campanulate 

 flowers, dull-coloured like those of an Atropa, and evidently 

 bringing- the Carapanulaceous and Solanaceous orders into 

 close contact. They may be said to have the habit of Canarina 

 on a small scale. By Dr. Wallich they were placed in a genus 

 he called Codonopsis, in which opinion he was at one time 

 followed by M. Alphonse DeCandolle, and by Mr. Bentham. 

 At a subsequent period, however, the former Botanist deter- 

 mined that one of the essential characters of Codonopsis 

 must reside in each flower having an involucrum more or 

 less adherent to a calyx, whose lobes are truncated. Such 

 being the case, it became necessary to separate this and some 

 other species, in which those characters are not found, from 

 the genus Codonopsis. Alphonse DeCandolle in doing this 

 transferred them to the genus Wahlenbergia, forming them 

 into a section under the name of Megasanthes, adopted from 

 George Don's general system of gardening. 



* According to D. Don this name was formed by him from yXwaaoKofxoQ 

 a money bag, because of the resemblance of the flower to it ; a resemblance 

 which we do not profess to recognize. >Such, howevei', being the admitted 

 meaning of the word, it must be written Glossocomia, and not Glosocomia 

 as it is found in books. 



