12 THE GENUS MANETTTA 



M. Holtonii, and M. scaberrinia. Of § Ysginantlius 10 species are 

 native here, all endemic, 5 in Colombia, 8 in Peru, and 2 in Bolivia ; 

 M. coccinea, curiously, is absent from this area. All the remaining 

 species of § Lygistum, with the single exception of M. JJexilis, 

 which occurs also in Central America, are peculiar to this district, 

 none occurring outside it. Of these 12 are endemic in Colombia and 

 Ecuador ; 6 in western Venezuela ; 6 in Peru ; and 2 in Bolivia. 



Broadly speaking, therefore, § Pyrranthos and § Heterochlora 

 species come from that part of South America enclosed between the 

 eastern coast from Bahia to Buenos Ayres and the Parana- Paraguay 

 rivers. § Lygistum and § Ysginanthus have their principal home in 

 north-western South America, save for nine or ten species native 

 about llio de Janeiro. Beside these, Central America and the West 

 Indies claim one native § Pyrranthos apiece ; the sole representative 

 of § Heterochlora outside South America is M. calycosa, which is 

 recorded from Hayti ; § Lygistum is represented by 2 species in 

 Central America and 2 in the West Indies ; and § Ysginanthus by 3 

 in Central America and 2 in the West Indies, the two latter figures 

 including M. coccinea. 



\^ Cultivation. 



As a cultivated stove evergreen -plant JMaufifia ranks among tlie 

 foremost of the vegetal)le products of tropical America. Yet notliing 

 approaching a complete account of this interesting genus has yet 

 been published, unless we except that of K. Schumann, in the Flora 

 BrnsiUetisis ; but this so abounds in error and omission as in many 

 ways to be worse than useless. In 1905 Mr. Sprague, of the Kevv 

 herbarium staff, published very helpful accounts of a few of the 

 more critically difficult species, in the Bulletin of the Boissier 

 Herbarium, Series II, volume V. In the previous year the same 

 gentleman published a valuable memoir upon the cultivated species of 

 Manettia, in the Gardeners'' Chronicle (ii. 38tL). In this he points 

 out that the })lant grown previously under the name M. hicolor was 

 in fact an undescribed species, which he named M. injlata. This 

 example of error, far from standing alone, is the type of many ; 

 indeed, the literary history of the genus is, like that of many another, 

 largely one of synonymic confusion. 



According to the Botanical Register, ix. t. 093 (1823) the first 

 species of Manettia to be introduced into cultivation was M. coccinea 

 Willd. — "which was lately raised by Mr. Anderson at the Ph\ sic 

 Garden, Chelsea, from seed from Trinidad." It is remai'kable that 

 this is probably synonymous with M. reclinata, the type of the genus 

 as described by Mvitis {infra). 31. coccinea has relatively small 

 (less than 2 cm.) flowers, of a rose-pink shade, according to the 

 figure quoted. Far outshining this is the popular 31. conlijolia 

 Mart. var. glabra, with a striking profusion of rich red flowers four 

 or five centimetres long. This beautiful species was first raised in our 

 country by Dr. Neill, of Canon Mills, Edinburgh, in 1831, from seeds 

 sent by Mr. Tweedie from Buenos Ayres. We have had occasion to 

 refer to it in detail in the historical account of the genus, as well as 

 in its place among the species. 



