72 J. Perkins: 



1,2 or 3 seeds, oblique, ellipsoid or roundly triangular, chestnut- 

 brown, with adpressed short hairs. Seeds 7 mm long, smooth, pale- 

 yellow with bilobed aril. 



Luzon, Prov. Batangas (Cuming no. 1466); Prov. Albav, near 

 Sorsogon (Vidal no. 3976); Mindanao Isl., Mt. Dagatpan in mixed 

 and in mountain forests, 500 — 1000 m above the level of the sea 

 (Warburg no. 14615); Leyte Isl. (Cuming no. 1756). 



This species may be easily distinguished on account of the 

 inflorescence, capsule and very smooth seed. 



4. Maranta L. 

 Maranta L. Gen. pi. ed. I, p. 331 (1737); K. Schumann in Pflanzen- 

 reich Lief. 4, p. 123 (1902). 



Sepals 3, equal, lanceolate or lanceolate -oblong, often relati- 

 vely large, striate, subpergamentaceous. Corolla-tube longer or 

 shorter than the sepals, usually at the base broad or gibbous, often 

 geniculate, very rarely elongated; lobes 3, subequal, at the apex 

 shortly cucuUate. Staminal-tube usually short; outer staminode 

 petal-like, 2 usually obovate, large, the others usually somewhat 

 shorter; cucullate-staminodc with a lateral deflexed appendage; cal- 

 lose- staminode obovate with the apex often two -parted, longitudinally 

 cristate, rarely not cristate. Stamens 1 -celled, always, at least at 

 the top, free, that is the petal -like appendage not cohering with the 

 filament. Style thick, curved, deflexed toward the callose-staminode 

 Avith an oblique two-lobed stigma. Ovary glabrous or soricious, by 

 abortion 1-celled. Fruit nutlike, indehiscent, with an adhering co- 

 riaceous epicarp, 1 -seeded. Seed triangular, at the apex truncate or 

 shortly pyramidal, grooved or furrowed, with a yellow or brownish- 

 yellow, sublamellated aril. — Perennial herbs, high or low, stiff, 

 erect or prostrate, branching, often spuriously dichotomous. Leaves 

 homotropous, petiolate. Inflorescence racemose; racemes often panicled; 

 bracts few, rarely numerous, usually sheathing the stem, caducous. 

 Pairs of flowers many, pedunculate, bracteolate; terminal flowers 

 usually longepedicellate, secondary ones subsossil. 



24 species in warmer parts of America, of which one species 

 is cultivated in all the warmer parts of the globe. 



1. M. aruiKliiiiU'Cii L. 



M.ftrnnd/naccalj. Spec. pi. ed. 1, p. 2 (1753); K.Scluunann in I'tlanzcn- 

 r.'i(rh Lief. IV, p. 125 (1902). 

 For full synonymy see Schumann. 



