152 REVIEWS. 



the burnt crust of a loaf of bread) ; the lower portion forms 

 a stout tap-root, buried in the soil, and branching- downward 

 at the end. From deep grooves in the circumference of the 

 depressed mass two enormous leaves are given off, each six 

 feet long when full grown, one corresponding to each lobe ; 

 these are quite fiat, linear, very leathery, and are split to the 

 base into innumerable thongs that lie curling upon the sur- 

 face of the soil. Its discoverer describes these same two 

 leaves as being present from the earliest condition of the 

 plant, and assures me that they are in fact developed from the 

 two cotyledons of the seed, and are persistent, being replaced 

 by no others. From the circumference of the tabular mass, 

 above, but close to the insertion of the leaves, spring stout, 

 dichotomously branched cymes, nearly a foot high, bearing 

 small erect scarlet cones, which eventually become oblong, and 

 attain the size of those of the common Spruce Fir. The scales 

 of the cones are very closely imbricated, and contain, when 

 young and still very small, solitary flowers, which in some 

 cones are hermaphrodite (structurally but not functionally), 

 in others female. The hermaphrodite flower consists of a 

 perianth of four pieces, six monadelphous stamens, with glo- 

 bose trilocular anthers, surrounding a central ovule, the inte- 

 gument of which is produced into a styliform sigmoid tube, 

 terminated by a discoid apex. The female flower consists of 

 a solitary erect ovule, contained in a compressed utricular 

 perianth. The mature cone is tetragonous, and contains a 

 broadly winged fruit in each scale. Its discoverer observes 

 that the whole plant exudes a resin, and that it is called 

 Tumbo by the natives, — whence he suggests that it may bear 

 the generic name of Tumboa; but this he withdrew at my 

 suggestion, for reasons which I shall presently give. It in- 

 habits the elevated sandy plateau near Cape Negro (lat. 15° 

 40' S.) on the southwest coast of Africa." 



Welwitschia mirabilis, Hook, fil., was also detected and 

 made known — indeed the first actual materials, with a draw- 

 ing of the plant, were sent to England — by Mr. Baines from 

 the Damara country, in lat. 24° or 24° S., about 500 miles 

 south of Cape Negro. Mr. Baines is an artist, and his original 



