206 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



was said of him at a large gathering of churchmen in Ross Chm'ch 

 the day before his funeral, " kindly and generous-hearted, yet 

 withal shrewd and practical, his was one of those lovable natures 

 which attract to themselves all who come in contact with them." 

 " The restored church at St. Weonard's," to quote yet one witness 

 more, "and the bridge over the Wye built by his exertions ' to the 

 honour of God, the lasting union of the two parishes ' — of Sellack 

 and King's Capel — ' and the use of all,' testify to his care for the 

 spiritual and general welfare of his parishioners; but those who 

 knew him personally will be helped most by the recollection of his 

 example of ' plain living and high thinking,' and of the purity and 

 sunny simplicity of a life wholly dedicated to the service of the 

 God of redemption and of nature." 



His body was laid to rest among his people in Sellack church- 

 yard, and this was the comment of a friend who was present, " I 

 never saw so many persons at a country funeral before." 



W. MoYLE Rogers. 



A REVISION OF THE GENUS HAM ELI A. 

 By H. p. Wernham. 



This genus of Bubiacecs is confined to the New World, the 

 earliest types described being the West Indian H. erecta and 

 H. patens, upon which Jacquin (Stirp. Amer. 72, t. 50, 1763) 

 founded the genus. 



Hamelia, comprising shrubs chiefly, with a few trees, is readily 

 distinguishable as a genus by the regularly secund arrangement 

 (except H. chrysantha) of the subsessile flowers in the cymes, and 

 by the external appearance of the flowers themselves. The latter 

 are usually tubular, often angled, with erect, inconspicuous corolla- 

 lobes ; the stamens have long and linear anthers basi-fixed upon 

 short membranous filaments inserted shortly above the base of 

 the corolla-tube. A large floral disc is typically present, and this 

 often persists as a large crown in the multilocular berry. The 

 seeds are numerous, very rarely more than 1 mm. in their 

 maximum dimension — usually much less — and more or less 

 coarsely foveolate. 



Of the species dealt with in the present paper, H. patens Jacq. 

 is by far the commonest and the most widely distributed, occurring 

 as far north as Florida, and generally over Central America, the 

 West Indies, Tropical South America and Brazil, and appearing 

 south of the tropics, in Paraguay. H. lutea is next in order of 

 wideness of distribution, although much rarer than H. patens, 

 being found in various localities of the West Indies, in Central 

 and South America, including Brazil. H. chrysantha is recorded 

 as from Mexico, Jamaica, and Venezuela — widely separated dis- 

 tricts. In all the other cases the distribution is, so far as our 

 present knowledge goes, local only, in various parts of the West 

 Indies, and Central and Tropical South America. 



