314 ORDEAL BEAN OF CALABAR. 



1863. The most remarkable character of the genus Physostigma is 



Genus /% that derived from the stigma, which possesses a singular, crescent- 

 tigma. shaped, hooded appendage. By this character, and the long 

 grooved hilum of the seed, it is separated from the nearly allied 

 genus Phaseolus ; and from Mucura, to which its seed bears 

 considerable resemblance, by the characters of its flowers and 

 pod ; from Canavalia, by its diadelphous stamens and other char- 

 acters ; and from Lciblcib, by its phaseoloid carina and pistil. 



Physostigma venenosum, the Ordeal Bean, is a large climbing 

 perennial with a woody stem of two inches diameter and some- 

 times fifty feet in length, Its large leaves are pinnately 

 trifoliate, with ovate acuminate leaflets. Its papilionaceous 

 flowers are in pendulous racemes, the stalk or rachis of which is 

 Botanical covered with tuber-like knots ; each flower is about an inch in 

 characters. ] en g^ an( j O f a pale-pink or purplish colour, beautifully veined. 

 The legume when full-grown is about seven inches in length, 

 elliptico-oblong, with a short curved point stipitate, dehiscent 

 and containing two or three seeds. The seeds, which are oblong 

 or somewhat reniform, are from 1 to If inch in length by 

 about of an inch in breadth ; their convex edge marked by a 

 long sulcate hilum, extending as a deep furrow from ' one ex- 

 tremity of the seed to beyond the other. The exterior of the 

 eeed is somewhat rough with a dull polish ; its colour is a deep 

 chocolate-brown, somewhat lighter on the raised edges of the 

 furrow. The seeds weigh, on an average of twenty, 67 grains. 



The Ordeal Bean is difficult to obtain even near the localities 

 where it is produced. Dr. Christison states upon the authority 

 The Seeds of the Eev. H. M. Waddell, of Old Calabar, that " the plant is 

 everywhere destroyed by order of the king, except when it is 

 preserved for supplying the wants of justice, and that the only 

 store of seeds is in the king's custody." Whether this remains 

 to be the fact I know not; but Mr. Gustav Mann, Collector 

 to the Royal Gardens, Kew, to whom I wrote some time ago 



rugosum, endocarpium intus tela laxa cellular! tectum, isthmis cellulosis inter 

 seraina. Semina strophiolata, hemisphserico-oblonga, hilo latesulcato senii- 

 cincta. 



Herbse suffruticosrc volubiles in Africa occidental! tropica crescentes : 

 foliis pinnatim-trifoliolatis, stipellatis, floribns nodoso-racemosis, purpureis. 





