BurmanniacecB. 129 



Shores of Red Sea, Indian Ocean, China, Malay Is., Pacific Is., 

 Australia. 



The leaves of this pretty little marine plant vary in form and greatly 

 in size; in the type the blade is oval-oblong, about \\ inch long, but it is 

 as often almost rotund, or sometimes linear-strap-shaped, and then not 

 more than | inch long. This last very small form, from Jaffna and 

 Trincomalie, may be called var. ttiinor (= Lenmopsis minor, Zoll.), but 

 there are intermediates. The brackish-water form is thought by Nevill 

 to have narrower leaves than the ordinary marine one (see Taprobanian, 

 ii. 67). — Trimen. 



H. stipulacea, Aschers., is marked by Ascherson on his map in Peterm. 

 Geog. Mitth. 1871, t. 13, as if in Ceylon. I have seen no specimens. — 

 Trimen. 



Amongst the specimens marked H. ovata in Herb. Peraden. there 

 are some collected by H. Nevill, in six-fathom water off Chilaw, April 

 1 88 1, of what appears to me to be a very different species, with very 

 pale green, oblong, petioled leaves, covered on both surfaces with a fine 

 pubescence, and with ciliolate margins. The petioles have no dilatation 

 of the base. The fr. enclosed in its spathes is sessile, about g in. long, 

 and resembles that of H. ovata. — J. D. H. 



2. H. Beccarii, Aschers. in Ntiov. Giorn. Bot. Ital. iii. 302 (1871). 

 Trim, in Journ. Bot. xxvii. i66. 

 Fl. B. Ind. vi. 570 (name only). 



Rootstock about as thick as a sparrow's quill, rather stiff, 

 nodes giving off short, erect, slender, few-leaved branches 

 \-i in. long ; 1. J-§ in., by ^-q-\ in., linear or lanceolate, sub- 

 obtuse, apiculate, quite entire, glabrous, with one vein on each 

 side half way between the margin and costa, but no transverse 

 venules, base narrowed into a filiform petiole, which is dilated 

 at the base into an auricled sheath ; fl. monoecious, male 

 spathe terminal, with often a peduncled fem. on one or both 

 sides ; spathes about yV in. long. 



In brackish water in dry region ; very rare. Found by Mr. Nevill in 

 a lagoon ten miles south of Batticaloa in 1885. 



Also in Burma and Borneo. 



Easily distinguished from the small narrow - leaved varieties of 

 H. ovata by the absence of lateral transverse veinlets. Both species 

 require to be fully described from living specimens. 



CXXV.— BURMANNIACE^. 



Annual, erect, saprophytic herbs; 1. chiefly radical, narrow, 

 entire, or reduced to scales, or o ; fl. bisexual, in terminal 

 simple spikes or racemes, or secund on the branches of a 

 forked cyme ; bracts fl.-opposed ; perianth superior, persistent, 

 6-lobed or cleft (cal. -lobes and pet), valvate; anth, 3 or 6, 

 sessile in the perianth-tube; ov. 3-celled, or i-celled with 3 



PART IV. K 



