on the Ilortus Malabaricus, Part IF. 239 



the noble collection of our King is anything but a shrubby Physalis, while the 

 Pee Vetti " Arbor est justse magnitudinis, caudice crasso — Flosculi (mascu- 

 lini nenipe) — sex teretibus acuniinatis — ac extrorsum reflexis foliolis constantes, 

 medium occupante stylo exiguo (filamentum) candido, capitulo (anthera) flavo. 

 — Baccse plano-rotundae (depressa;) acuminatae, decem cingulis sulcatee, pur- 

 pura;, glabra;, nitentes, intus in decem loculamenta per membranaceas quas- 

 dam pelliculas distincta, in quibus totidein locuntur acini — crocei — ita ut sin- 

 guli in singulis latitent cellis." This account is totally irreconcileable with the 

 Pe Vett'i being a Physalis, and an inspection of the figure shows this still 

 further. The separate figure of the fruit does not represent an inflated calyx 

 concealing a berry, but a small calyx supporting the base of a large fruit. 

 The flowers also are evidently monoecious ; the male, described by Rheede, 

 having an open calyx deeply divided into six segments, and containing in the 

 centre one filament, which supports the antherse united into a capitulum. 

 The female flowers, not noticed in the letter-press, have the divisions of the 

 calyx erect, and these include the germen crowned by a projecting sharp- 

 pointed stylus. AVhether the fruit is actually a berry, or is merely a coloured 

 capsule, I cannot say. If it is a berry, this circumstance, and there being only 

 one seed in each cell, may induce some to separate the plant from the genus 

 Bradleja ; although it is evident that the Pe Vetti has the utmost affinity to 

 this genus, which includes most of the Agynejas. I suspect, however, that the 

 fruit is merely a coloured capsule, which, with the red covering of the seeds, 

 usual in the Bradleja ("semina arido-baccata," Goertn. De Sem. ii. 12/.), may 

 have readily induced Rheede to use the term bacca, botanical language being 

 then less definite than it now is. In this case, the circumstance of the seeds 

 being solitary in tiie Pee Vetti, would be quite too trifling to distinguish it as 

 a genus from Agyneja multilocularis, which is a Bradleja, of which I have given 

 specimens to the library at the India House, or from the Agyneja coccinea, 

 of which my account was published by Colonel Symes in the account of his 

 Embassy to Ava, and of which specimens were sent to Sir Joseph Banks. 



To the above-mentioned library I have given specimens of two plants, or 

 perhaps of two varieties of one species, both of which agree so far with the 

 character of the Physalis Jlexuosa that I have little doubt of its being one of 

 them, although both entirely want the character (ramis flexuosis) from 



