Plate 1777. 



MTJSA PROBOSCIDEA, Olio. 

 Scitamixe-5). Tribe Muse^e. 



^ Oliv. (sp. nov.) ; cauloma plnripe ._ _, 



(hand bulboso-dilatatnm), foliis ovali-oblongis breviter petiolatis ; 



$ gerentibus) late ovatis 

 floribus c? ut videtur biseriatia 



spadice pendulo longissimo bracteis (fl. 



obtusis floribus 2^-3-plo longioribus, flori 



(circa 18-24 intra bracteas deciduas superiores) periantbii labio 

 superiore subrecurvo brevissimo subreniformi medio abrupte apicu- 

 lato, seminibus turbinato-obovoideis lateribas irregular iter conipla- 

 natis Iambus maris. 



Hab. Hills of TJkami, abont 100 miles inland to the west of the 

 Island of Zanzibar.— Sir John Kirk. 



^ Of this singular Banana we possess only the seeds and photographs, 

 kindly communicated by Sir J. Kirk. The latter show the spadix 

 just beginning to recurve with the young fruits in the axils of the 

 lower bracts, the cylindrical continuation of the axis bearing male 

 flowers emerging, already naked below, from the early fall of the 

 bracts to which the flowers are adnate, the leaves still entire and 

 vigorous; another photograph shows a more advanced stage, the 

 leaves reduced to pendent shreds, and the axis of the inflorescence 

 reaching to about one-third the height of the stem above the ground, 

 rope. like, cylindrical, marked with the close scars of the fallen bracts, 

 and bearing at the extremity the terminal as yet unfolded bud 

 sheathed in the still-remaining bracts. The only other photograph is 

 of a flower-bearing^ scale, as represented in the plate. The seeds 

 average about five lines in length and diameter, and are convex, with a 

 minute central depression above, more or less angled from mutual 

 pressure on the sides. They are not so vertically depressed, nor are 

 they tuberc'ed, as in If. Living stoniana, Kirk.— D~ Oliver. 



Figs. 1 and 2. Seed. 3. Same (enlarged), vertical section. 



