262 ON A NEW SPECIES OF TACCA. 
fessor Asa Gray has been good enough to obtain for me a transcript 
of the description and tracing of the figure of T. oceanica, known to 
me only from a reference in Pereira’s ‘ Materia Medica.’ As others 
may find themselves in the same difficulty as I was, it may be desirable 
to reprint the description. I may add that T. oceanica proves iden- 
tical with Forster's T. pinnatifida, and that the Indian plant hitherto 
included under that name will probably have to receive a new name.— 
B. SEEMANN.] 
Tacca oceanica, maxima, foliis palmato-quinquepartitis coadunatis, 
laciniis acuminatis, ultimatis trifidis; involuerum foliolis lato-ovatis 
sublobatis breviusculis. 
abitat.—In rich shady woods, towards the mountains in Tahiti, 
and probably other of the Friendly Islands, as well as in Wahoo, 
Owyhee, and Atovi, of the Sandwich group. 
Description —The root consists of numerous yellowish-white-skinned 
tubers, scattered over with eye-buds like so many potatoes, and are, in 
fact, scarcely distinguishable from the roots of that common vegetable ; 
rom these arise in the summer season, clusters of tall spreading pal- 
mately-divided smooth leaves, from two to three feet high, of which 
length the foot-stalk forms two-thirds or more; the leaf itself extends 
out to the breadth of eighteen inches or two feet, and is divided into 
three primary divisions, and two others which are lateral, or come out 
above the base of the side divisions; these principal divisions are 
divided very much in the manner of our red oak leaves, or pinnatifid 
towards the base, and more or less dilated and three-lobed beyond ; 
each of the principal divisions again inclining to be three-lobed, except 
the central one, which is usually pinnatifid as well as terminally 
three-lobed ; all the divisions end in acuminated points, and are, below, 
everywhere confluent into each other, down to the primary divisions or 
summit of the footstalk. 
The leaves are probably possessed of some degree of succulence, 
but the vessels beneath present a strong, almost pinnated outline. e 
scape or flower-stem, in the only specimen I possess, is very stout, and 
rather more than three feet high, attenuated towards the umbel, whose 
involucrum consists of about two series of broad, ovate, acute, and 
sometimes slightly three-lobed leaves, which appear to have been white, 
or some brighter colour. 
The umbel consists of numerous longish, pedunculated, small, brown 
