60 Linnean Society. [March 17» 



ness our cordial congratulations on the happy occasion of Your Royal 

 Highness's marriage with Her Majesty our gracious Queen and 

 Patron. 



" We hail this auspicious event as equally promoting the happi- 

 ness of Her Majesty and the best interests of Her Majesty's affec- 

 tionate and loyal people, and we most devoutly implore the blessings 

 of Almighty God on Your Royal Highness, that He through His 

 goodness and mercy may be pleased to extend His watchful care 

 over the lives and happiness of our beloved Sovereign and Your 

 Royal Highness." 



Read " On some new Brazilian Plants allied to the Natural 

 Order Burmanniaceee." By John Miers, Esq., F.L.S. 



Of the thirteen recorded species of Burmannia five are natives of 

 Brazil, where they were found by Von Martius, who has not only 

 accurately described them, but has given an able detail of the genus. 

 The author, previous to his departure from Brazil, discovered five 

 new plants, evidently allied to Burmannia, but which differ in many 

 essential characters : from these he has established three new ge- 

 nera, Dictyostega, Cymbocarpa, and Stemoptera : they possess the 

 habit of Burmannia in their thickened rhizoma with branching fibres, 

 an erect stem, almost naked, or furnished with a few distant bracti- 

 form leaves and terminal flowers, with a tubular petaloid perian- 

 thium, having a six-partite border, composed of three sepals and three 

 petals ; stamens three, almost sessile, in the mouth of the tube be- 

 low the petals ; anthers with the cells disjoined and opening trans- 

 versely ; a simple style ; three stigmata and a capsule surmounted by 

 the withered perianth bursting irregularly ; seeds minute, resembling 

 those of Orchidea ; but the most important difference consists in their 

 having unilocular capsules, wdth three parietal placentae, while Bur- 

 mannia has always a trilocular capsule, with central placentation, 

 an essential difference, which entitles them to be considered, if not 

 as forming a new natural order, at least as constituting a distinct 

 sub-family. Allied to these are to be arranged three other plants, 

 already recorded, the Apteria setacea of NuttaU, a native of North 

 America, and Gonyanthes Candida and Gymnosiphon aphyllum of 

 Blume, by whom they were found in Java. The author considers 

 his genus Dictyostega as coming very near Apteria, which, however, 

 from the drawing and description of Mr. Nuttall, would seem to re- 

 semble Stemoptera still more closely in its habit, its seeds, and its 

 large single flowers ; but it does not appear to possess the very 



