MARANTA BICOLOR. 
MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
SECT. I. CANN. 
Grn. Cuar.—Anther single, attached to the margin of the filament; style tubular; stigma revolute, trilobate ; 
capsule one-celled; seed single, gibbous. 
Spec. Cuar.—Spike bursting from a sheathing vagina about the middle of the petiole ; flowers alternating in 
ascending fascicles, and expanding in succession, white, with red spots; leaves broad ovate, 
mucronate, clouded with light and dark green above, ferruginous red below, ganglions hairy. 
Syy.—Maranta bicolor. Bot. Reg. No. 786. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Root a round tuber, with very strong fleshy fibres; leaves radical, on long purple sheaths or petioles, which 
terminate in a villous ganglion, broad-ovate, somewhat mucronate, clouded with shades of green above, dark red 
on the under surface ; spike jointed, bursting from the petiole; flowers in fascicles, alternating on the rachis, 
each fascicle on a long pedicel, and bearing several flowers expanding in succession in pairs; bractes lanceolate, 
smooth, striated, pale green; calyx superior, of three lanceolate segments, terminating in a fine mucronated 
point ; outer limb of corolla in three segments, nearly equal, lanceolate, white; inner limb in three segments, two 
of them erect, broad, spreading, bilobate, heart-shaped, and marked in the centre of each with a narrow purple 
streak ; the third section or lip erect, hooded, white, with a purple margin, screening the anther and style during 
impregnation ; filament an irregularly petal-like wing, lobed on one side, and incrassated on the other, to which the 
anther is attached by a short pedicel; anther ovate, two-celled ; style connate with the filament, tubular, erect, 
recurved ; stigma terminal, in three lobes ; capsule villous, one-celled. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
A good figure of this very singular plant, lately introduced from the Brazils, is given in Bot. Reg. No. 786, 
except that it there appears to flower from the centre of the leaves, which is not the case with our plant, which had 
three spikes of flowers upon it, all of which flowered from the petiole of the leaf. 
The plant here figured was kindly communicated, in flower, from Lord Milton’s Conservatory, at Wentworth 
House, by Mr. Joseph Cooper, in the beginning of March last, and still continues (June 15,) to produce a daily 
succession of flowers, which remain only three or four hours in perfection. 
REFERENCES. 
1. Flower, natural size. 
2. Germen and calyx. 
3. Part of the flower, slightly magnified. 
4. Filament, anther, style and stigma, greatky magnified. 
