MARANTA DIVARICATA. 
MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
SECT. I. CANNE. 
Gry. Cuar.—Anther single, attached to the margin of the petal-like filament; style tubular, reflexed ; stigma 
trilobate ; capsule ovate ; seed single. 
Spec. Cuar.—Stem herbaceous, erect, with dichotomous branches, and alternate bractes or sheaths coloured at the 
apex ; leaves alternate, broad-lanceolate-acute, ineequilateral, glaucous below. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Roots fibrous, culm herbaceous, erect, with branches diverging almost at right angles from the stem, which 
is distantly imbricated with ascending bractes or scales, each terminating in an obtuse pink-coloured apex; leaves - 
alternate, broad-lanceolate, acute at the apex, obtuse, and somewhat cordate at the base, with a villous mid-rib 
below, strongly nerved, dark green above, glaucous below ; petioles with a short, villous ganglion, and a long 
decurrent sheath; panicle rising laterally from the axil of the leaves, long, slender, and terminating in dichotomous 
peduncles; calyx superior, of three equal, lanceolate segments, green; corolla tubular, outer: limb in three 
segments, ovate, equal, intire, pure white, inner limb in three segments, two of them lateral, equal, ovate; the 
third section, or lip, rather larger, and slightly notched at the apex; anther ovate, attached by a short subulate 
stamen to the margin of a hooded petal-like filament ; style tubular, connate with the filament, revolute ; stigma 
obtusely three-lobed ; germen ovate, villous; seed single, gibbous. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
A new and very distinct species of Maranta, readily known by its imbricated stem and lateral dichotomous 
shoots, from which we have given it the name of divaricata. It was raised from seeds sent from the Brazils by 
Mr. William Harrison, and first flowered in the Conservatory of Arnold Harrison, Esq. at Aighburgh, near 
Liverpool, in September 1825; from which plant, apparently a very young one, the present figure was taken. 
The flowers were of very short duration, and did not produce seeds; but the three-lobed stigma, and the 
one-celled germen, sufficiently distinguish its genus from Phrynium, with which alone it could be confounded. 
REFERENCES. 
1. Intire flower, natural size. 
2 & 3. Different views of the filament, anther, style and stigma, magnified. 
