102 MR. JOHN MIERS ON VERBENACEA FROM 
out two opposite branches about 9 in. from the ground; the leaves are 14-2 in. long, 
2-12 in. broad at the truncated portion, and a little narrower where the leaf begins suddenly 
to diminish in a cuneate form towards the compressed petiole, which is 7 to 15 lines long: 
the terminal spike is about 4 in. long in flower, 6 in. long in fruit, bare at base for 1 or 
2 inches; about six decussately opposite flowers are closely approximated in several sub- 
verticils, which are from 6 to 9 lines apart; and there are six or seven such clusters in 
each spike; the bract is 13 line long, the pedicel is 3 line, the calyx 3 lines long, inclu- 
ding the teeth, of which the longest is 4 line; the tube of the corolla is 43 lines long, 
li line broad, the two upper lobes 14 line, the three lower lobes 13 lin. long; the fila- 
ments are very short and patently puberous; the calyx, in fruit, is 5 lines long; the 
drupe is 3 lines long, 2 lines in diameter, with a structure already described. The tubers 
appear to have escaped the observation of those who collected the specimens existing in 
different herbaria, owing to the. plant growing mostly in stony ground: that they are 
known to the natives is evident from the name by which the plant is called, Papilla 
(literally a small potato). Dr. Graham, who raised the plant from seed in Edinburgh, 
was not aware that it belonged to this well-known species, describes its tubers as being 
of the size of a hazel-nut: they certainly escaped my observation, as well as that of 
Gillies, Gay, Ney, and others. Walpers, who describes the plant from cultivated speci- 
mens grown on the Continent, gave it the name of Priva orchioides, from its stoloniferous 
long creeping root. 
9. DIOSTEA. 
This consists of a small group of plants from the cordillera of Chile and Mendoza, the 
type of which is the Verbena juncea, Hook., which I propose to separate as a distinct 
genus, under the name of Diostea. They have all a peculiar habit, mostly having subfis- 
tulose virgate branches, with distant axils, which are often aphyllous, with opposite, 
oblong and dentated, or linear and entire leaves, with very short petioles, and with 
spicated inflorescence: some of them become black in drying. The calyx is cylindrical, 
with five unequal subulate teeth; the corolla is tubular and incurved, twice or three 
times the length of the calyx, with a border of five small, oblong, entire or emarginated, 
patent lobes; the stamens are in superposed pairs, often with a sterile fifth, all included 
within the tube; the style, also included, is gradually dilated towards its obliquely trun- 
cated extremity, and furnished with a smaller subglobular papillose stigma; the ovary, 
in its early development from a single carpel, is like that of Casselia, being at first 
imperfectly unilocular, two short parallel semisepta advancing from the sulcated 
anterior side across the centre, where they are each reflected; while, in progress E 
growth, two other semisepta advance from the posterior wall, and uniting with the others, 
make the ovary 2-celled, with an erect ovule in each cell, the dissepiment remaining 
bilamellated in its entire length. The fruit is an oval drupe, enclosed in the swollen 
persistent calyx, consisting of a smooth, dry pericarp, enclosing two oval, hard, dark, 
corneous nuts, each 1-celled, convex outside, flat inside, within the margins rounded, 
having at the base, near the anterior side, a long, oval, white, placentiferous pateb, | 
covering a small foramen which leads into the base of the cell, continuous with a late- — 
