PHRYNIUM. 
In the Hortus Malabaricus of Van Rheede, published at several times between 1676 and 1693, a plant is given 
under the name of Naru-kila, v. xi. t. 34, which seems to have been for a long time considered as a general reference 
for all plants of the Scitaminean tribe, which could not otherwise be ascertained. Swartz, in his Observations, 
(p. 123.) has observed, that it is of the Monandrian class, nearly allied to Thalia, and perhaps a species of 
that genus. Gmelin, in his Systema Vegetabilium, has cited it for no less than three different plants, Myrosma 
Canneefolia, Maranta allouya, and Pontederia ovata. It is the Phyllodes placentaria of Loureiro, the Globba uniformis 
of Martyn, the Maranta allouya of Aublet, and lastly, the Phrynium capitatum of Willdenow, who constituted 
it a new genus under that name,* by which it has since been known. In his Dissertation on Monandrian 
Plants, in Asiatic Researches, vol. xi. p- 325, Dr. Roxburgh has given an excellent coloured figure of this 
plant, which may be considered as the type of the genus, and precludes the necessity of republishing it here. 
In the same work Dr. Roxburgh added two other species, viz. P. dichotomum, (the Thalia canneeformis 
of Forster, Prod. No. 3,) and a new one from Dr. Anderson’s garden at Madras, which he named P. virgatum. 
(v. Asiat. Res. v. xi. p. 324.) In the Flora Indica of Dr. Roxburgh, published by Dr. Carey and Dr. Wallich, 
in 1820, three additional species are introduced, viz. P. spicatum, P. imbricatum, and P. parviflorum, the latter 
of which is figured in the present work. It does not appear from the Flora Indica, that a single species 
of Maranta is known in the East. 
To the plants before enumerated, considerable additions have now been made from the western world. 
Amongst the inedited drawings of Plumier, discovered on the Continent and in the islands of America, are 
several which, for want of a more complete description, have, since his death, given rise to doubts which it 
was found impossible to remove. Of these figures, some have been copied and published by the late Professor 
Jacquin of Vienna, in his Fragmenta, but without sufficient grounds for deciding on their genus. Additional 
light has been thrown on_ this subject by Mr. Rudge, in his Plants of Guiana, in which several specimens 
are given, which undoubtedly belong to Phrynium. The diversities between these plants and Maranta, have 
not escaped the observation of Dr. Meyer, who, in his Flora Essequibonensis, &c. has proposed to establish a 
new genus from them, under the name of Calathea; but although he has sufficiently shown that they cannot 
be united with Maranta, he probably had not an opportunity, from the little that was then known of the 
genus Phrynium, of comparing them, otherwise he would, perhaps, have united them together under that 
denomination. 
The result of these inquiries will occasion a considerable alteration in the arrangement of this portion 
of Monandrian Plants, as given by Roemer and Schultes, in their Syst. Veget. (vol. i. Stutgard, 1817,) where 
only one species of Phrynium (the Capitatum) is introduced; whilst of eighteen species of plants described 
under the name of Maranta, ten or twelve belong to Phrynium, or have not yet been sufficiently ascertained. 
The proposition of Meyer has been adopted in some parts of the Continent, as well as in several of our 
Botanical periodical works; but as the establishment of a genus under the name of Calathea, would render 
it necessary to abolish that of Phrynium, which preceded it by several years, we have found ourselves compelled, 
after the fullest examination from living plants, to adhere to the appellation of Willdenow, the propriety of 
which reatare confirmed by many additional specimens in the present work. The genus Phrynium, according 
to Sprengel, includes only the plants enumerated in the Flora Indica. 
Although the species of Phrynium are very numerous, upwards of twenty being: already known, besides 
several others in the Botanic Garden at Liverpool, which have not produced their flowers; yet the arrangement 
* Supposed from oprnu (oPrnoz,) a toad; but more likely from opryioy, or oPrranoy, a kind of dry hard plant—Virgultum aridum. 
