NOTE ON MYROSMA CANN^FOLIA. 41 



This Mi/rosma cannafulia has had a singularly varied and con- 

 fusing bibliographical history. It has a striking habit, and would 

 readily catch the eye of a plant-collector, and is distributed through- 

 out the eastern side of Tropical America from the West Indies to 

 the south of Brazil. 



In 1797, in his Species Plautarum (i. 13), Willdenow altered the 

 specific name to cannceformis. In 1826 it was introduced into culti- 

 vation in England, and was figured and described by Eoscoe in his 

 magnificent Monandrous Plants of the order Scitmninea, tab. 89, 

 under the name of Phrijnium Myrosma. Eoscoe discusses the 

 question of nomenclature at considerable length, and finally con- 

 cludes to sink Mi/rosiiui under Phrij)iium, which was constituted as 

 a genus by Willdenow in 1797. In point of fact the two genera 

 are quite distinct from one another. 



There are two distinct types of fruit in the Marantacece. In the 

 first series two out of the three cells of the ovary are obliterated, 

 and the fruit is essentially one-seeded. In the other series the 

 three cells of the ovary are all equally developed and fertile. 

 Maranta and Mijrosiiia belong to the first series, Phri/iriion and 

 Calathea to the second. In 1828 the plant was redescribed by 

 Lindley from garden specimens {Botanical Eef/ister, t. liSlO), under 

 the name of Calathea macilenta, and it was figured by Loddiges in 

 1831 at tab. 1781 of the Botanical Cabinet. In 1831, in A. Dietrich's 

 edition of the Species Plantarum (p. 22), it is called il/rt;v/u<« Myrosma. 

 It was again collected in Guiana in quantity by Eichard S liom- 

 burghk, and was distributed (No. 1305 of his Guiana collection) 

 as Thalianthus macropus Klotzsch. It appears as " IVudianthus 

 ■macropus Klotzsch, nov. gen.," without any description, in addition 

 to Myrosma canncFfolia, on p. 1125 in the botanical volume of his 

 Versuch einer Faiina mid Flora von Britisch Guiana, published in 

 1848. In Kornicke's Marantearum Prodromns, published in 1862 

 {Moscow Bulletin, xxxv. 66), it is described under the name of 

 Maranta {Xerolepis) Moritziana, and also enumerated on p. 135 

 under the names of Calathea Myrosma Kornicke and C. macilenta 

 Lindl. In his Frodronnis Monographice, Scitaminearuni (1862) 

 Horaninow implicitly follows Kornicke, and the plant again 

 appears both under Calathea and Maranta under three specific 

 names. If it had been really identical with Calathea, Myrosma 

 would have to take precedence, as the former genus was not 

 constituted till 1818, thirty-seven years later than Myrosma. 

 Finally Eichler and Peterssen have made Kornicke's section 

 Xerolepis of the genus Maranta into a genus under the name of 

 Saranthe, and our present plant is fully described and figured in 

 the excellent monograph of Marantacece contributed by the latter to 

 the great Flora Brasiliensis (iii. pt. 3, p. 168, t. 50) under the name 

 of Saranthe Moritziana, and it also appears there twice amongst the 

 doubtful species of Calathea under the same names as in Kornicke 

 and Horaninow. The genus Saranthe is only Myrosma over again, 

 and the genus Ctenanthe of Engler and Peterssen only difi'ers from 

 Saranthe in leaf-arrangement, so that I prefer to follow Bentham in 

 not separating it. Myrosma is so fully and clearly described by 



