VOL. LXm.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 419 



XXII. Description of a Rare American Plant of the Broivncea hind; ivith some 

 Remarks on this Genus. By Mr. Peter Jonas Bergius, F. R. S^. p. 173. 

 As the Leucandendra, Bruniae, Diosmae, Phylicae, Hermanniae, &c. are pe- 

 culiar to Africa, so are likewise the Varroniae, Ehretiae, Samydse, Malpigliise, 

 Cacti, Brownaea, &c. peculiar to America, not having been found in any other 

 country: at present Mr. B. confines himself to the last mentioned kind. Mr. 

 Jacquin, during his botanical travels in America, founded this genus, in memory 

 of Dr. Patrick Browne, the celebrated English botanist; but Jacquin found only 

 one species of this genus; neither was Sir Ch. Linne hitherto acquainted with 

 any more. Mr. B. has now specimens of a new species of this kind, which he 

 received from Mr. Pihl, who gathered it in Portobello in America, which will 

 afford an opportunity of exhibiting the whole genus of the Brownaea, and the 

 specifical differences of it. If we compare Mr. Jacquin's description of his species 

 with this, we see how carefully nature has observed the same order and position 

 of the essential parts in both ; a circumstance common to all natural genera. 

 Mr. B. does not know whether this plant will vegetate and thrive in our stoves 

 or green-houses; if it does, he is convinced it will make a beautiful appearance 

 with its assemblage of purple or blood-red flowers. 



Genus Browntea. — 1. Brownaea (coccinea) b. with separate umbellated flowers. 

 Brownaea coccinea. Linn. Spec. Plant. 958. Jacquin, Hist. Stirp. Amer. 194, 

 t. 121. Native of rocky and woody places. 



1. Brownaea (Rosa de montej b. with aggregate headed sessile flowers, with 

 very long stamens. Hermesias. Loefling. Itin. p. 278. Native of mountainous 

 places. i 



Descr. Trwn^ arboreous; ^'/ancAei torulose with a cinereous bark; branchlets 

 (or common petioles) subalternate, cylindric, smooth, with a cork-like wrinkled 

 joint at the base, spreading; /eares coriaceous, a span's length, opposite, per; 

 fectly entire, ovate oblong, lengthened sharp, smooth on both sides, with obso- 

 lete alternate nerves, shortly footstalked, the lower ones gradually smaller, the 

 lowest ovate, subcordate at the base; petiolets short, thick, wrinkled; ^02i/er,f 

 within a common calyx, aggregated into a roundish head or fascicle, very beau- 

 tiful, of the size of a fist; fascicles solitary, alternate, distant, sessile, subaxillary; 

 calyx common imbricate, leaflets or bractes ovate, rather sharp, submembrana- 

 ceous concave, rather lax, smooth, about two thumbs breadth long, red: each 

 including single, or even two or three flowers; deciduous; the exterior rounded; 

 the interior smaller, gradually linear; perianth, proper cylindric, tubulate, above 

 rather enlarged, red, villose, bifid ; with the divisions ovate, sharpish, subequal, 

 erect; coroL universal \m\iorm, blood-red; /);oper double; ex/mor infundibuli- 

 form, longer than calyx: tube cylindric, subangulate, narrowed downwards, sub- 



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