IPOM(EA SIMULANS. 351 



embarrassing. The first lot of specimens despatched from 187O. 

 Guanajuato was stolen from the mail ; the second shared the specimens 

 same fate: while a third, which included live tubercules, was, ,. fro . m , 



_ ' Guanajuato. 



by successive detentions on the way, fully five months in reach- 

 ing England. The box, however, came to hand in June last ; 

 and amid a mass of damp earth and decaying matter, I had the 

 satisfaction of discovering one solitary tubercule exhibiting signs 

 of vitality. This, placed in a greenhouse and carefully nursed, 

 soon began to grow with rapidity, and, on removal to an open 

 border, produced a tall and vigorous plant, which towards Successful 

 September showed signs of flowering. It was then taken up and raisl pf an 3 t f * 

 replaced in the greenhouse, where it blossomed freely in October 

 last, but did not mature any seeds. Accompanying the tuber- 

 cules, but of course in a separate box, my correspondent sent 

 some pressed and dried specimens from Guanajuato, which 

 corresponded perfectly with the growing plant. 



Having ascertained, from the study of these materials, that the Identification 

 plant belonged to the genus Ipomma, I endeavoured to identity c 

 it with some species described in the Prodromus of De Can- 

 dolle, or in the subsequently published Annales of Walpers, 

 but without success. Neither was I able to find any correspond- 

 ing specimen in the herbaria of the British Museum or of the 

 Eoyal Gardens of Kew. In the Paris Museum there is a plant, 

 collected by Galeotti on the lofty Cordillera near Oaxaca, which, 

 so far as a scanty specimen enables me to judge, accords precisely 

 with that received from Mr. Finck. It bears a number which 

 is not mentioned in the enumeration, by Martens, of Galeotti's 

 Convolvulacece (contained in the Bulletin de I'Acaddmie Roy ale 

 de Bruxelles^ ; and I therefore conclude that it is unnamed. 

 Under these circumstances I have drawn up the following diag- 

 nosis and description of the plant which I propose to call 

 Ipom&.a simulans. The specific name is chosen in allusion to Diagnosis of 

 the remarkable similarity which the plant bears in foliage and 

 habit to the true jalap (Ipomcea purga, Hayne), not to mention 

 the resemblance of its tubercules. The funnel-shaped corolla 

 and pendent flower-buds of the Tampico jalap-plant are quite 

 1 Tome xii. pt. 2 (1845), p. 257. 



