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ON FOUE NEW BKOMELIADS AND A NEW 

 STEGOLEPIS FROM BRITISH GUIANA. 



By J. G. Baker, F.R.S. 



During a recent excursion to the celebrated Kaieteur Cataract, 

 on the Potaro River, in British Guiana, Mr. G. S. Jenman, the 

 energetic curator of the Demerara Botanic Garden — amongst many 

 other plants of great interest, many of them gathered i^reviously 

 by Schomburgk, Appun and Im Thurn, but some of them new — 

 obtained specimens of the following novelties. Two of them, the 

 large fi'uticose Bromeliad and the Ster/olepis, were both gathered by 

 Mr. Im Thurn in 1878, but, as so often occurs, in neither case 

 were the 'specimens of a single gathering complete enough to settle 

 properly the systematic position of the plants. y 



McRMEk [Pironneara) BRAssicomEs, n. sp. — Rhizome creeping ^ 

 freely, throwing out numerous buds, till the plant forms a mass. 

 Leaves horny in texture, green and glabrous on both back and 

 face; dilated base oblong, half a foot long, 3-4 inches broad; 

 lamina lanceolate, above a foot long, 2^-3 in. broad at the middle, 

 narrowed gradually to a deltoid tij), margined with close small 

 pungent deltoid prickles. Peduncle a foot and a half long, 

 piercing through its large erect oblong-navicular lowest leaf, which 

 is above half a foot long and colom-ed bright red on both sides ; the 

 leaves next succeeding much smaller, oblong, obtuse and im- 

 bricated; the upper more distant, lanceolate, thinner in texture and 

 coloured pale pink, the exposed upper part of the peduncles 

 white-floccose, like the rachis of the panicle. Inflorescence a 

 panicle, half a foot long, with numerous short sessile spicate 

 branches, each containing not more than 3-5 tightly packed multi- 

 fariously-arranged flowers, the lowest spike subtended by a pink 

 lanceolate bract, 2-3 in. long, the bracts of the upper spikes with a 

 long hnear cusp and not more than an inch long. Ultimate bracts 

 subtending each flower lanceolate- acuminate, with a dilated base, 

 white-floccose, f-1 in. long. Ovary very small. Sepals linear, 

 oblong, horny, imbricated, floccose on the back, f in. long, obtuse, 

 with/ a small cusp. Petals yellow, with a claw as long as the 

 sepal, and an oblong lamina ^ in. long. Genitalia not protruded, 

 the filament reaching to the top of the petal-claw and oblong 

 anther § in. long. Style as long as the petals. — Kaieteur Savanna, 

 Jenman 957 ! A near ally of the West Indian jEchmea aquilegia, 

 Griseb. [Bromelia aquilegia, Salisb. Parad., t. 40j, which in my 

 synopsis of the genus ( jom-n. Bot. 1879, p. 132) I have wrongly 

 cited under M. hracteata. They really belong to two different 

 sections, the flowers being arranged in aquilegia multifariously and 

 in hracteata distichously. The name hrassic(Bformis is suggested by 

 a note of the collectors that the inner leaves form a heart like an 

 early spring-cabbage. _ ^ 



iEcHMEA [Hoheiihergia] Jenmani, n. sp. — Dilated base of the lea>i^^ 

 oblong, brown on both sides, rigid in texture, 8-9 in. long, 3-4 in. 



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