PHRYNIUM CASUPO. 
MONANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
SECT. I. CANN. 
Gey. Cuar.—Anther single, attached to the margin of the filament; style tubular, revolute, truncate ; ee 
a circular membranous orifice, depressed ; seeds three. 
Srrc. Cuar.—Leaves radical, on long petioles, sheathed at the base, lanceolate, ovate, ineequilateral, with a 
dusky ganglion; scape rising from the sheath of the leaves, very long, foliaceous at the summit ; 
spike bursting from the petiole of the upper or floral leaf, oblong, imbricate ; outer bractes 
large, broad, ovate, concave, coriaceous, of a dusky brown; flowers yellow. 
Syy.—Bermudiana amplissimo folio. Plum. Hist. v. p- 21, 22. 
Maranta casupo, v. cachibou. Jacq. Fragm. tab. 63—69. 
Calathea discolor. Meyer, Fl. Essequibon. p. 7 
Maranta casupo. Roémer & Schultes. v. i. p. 16. 
Maranta cachibou. Jd. v. i. p. 17. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Plant from 12 to 14 feet high; leaves radical, long-petioled, 2-3 feet long, broad-ovate-lanceolate, 
smooth on both sides, green above, whitish and powdered beneath; petioles sheathed at the base, ganglionated 
next the leaf; scape rising from the sheath of one of the radical leaves, erect, smooth, producing from its 
summit a series of secondary or floral leaves, ovate, inzequilateral, with vaginated or flower-bearing petioles ; spike 
oblong, imbricated, pedicellate, bursting from the floral sheath of the petiole; inflorescence glumaceous; outer 
bractes broad-ovate, carinate, imbricate, coriaceous, biflorous ; opposite bracte quadriform, angular, membranaceous, 
winged at the exterior angles; an intermediate ligneous bracte between every two flowers, narrow, linear, 
erect; inner bractes ovate; calyx superior, of three lanceolate leaves, hirsute; tube of the corolla cylindrical, 
villous, terminating in a double limb; outer limb in three lanceolate sections, equal, a greenish yellow; 
inner limb bilabiate, upper lip in two divisions, one ovate, bearing the anther on_ its margin, and 
forming the proper filament, the other irregularly bifid, hooded, protecting the style and stigma; lower lip 
broad-ovate, deeply bifid; lobes obtuse, crenate, yellow; anther ovate, grooved, terminating in a small recurved 
point, and attached to the margin of the filament by a short subulate process; style tubular, revolute, truncate 
at the apex; stigma a simple, cylindrical, membranous orifice, varying in its relative position to the anther 
according to the state of fructification ; capsule three-celled, three-valved; seeds three, oblong, angular, perforated 
with cavities within. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
Although this plant was figured upwards of a century ago by Plumier, amongst his inedited drawings, 
and has since been the object of anxious inquiry to several eminent botanists, yet the essential parts of its 
fructification, which alone can determine its genus, haye not hitherto been analyzed and described with that 
accuracy which is indispensable, before we can assign to it its proper station amongst the plants of the 
order to which it belongs. The figures of Plumier occupy two sheets, (Hist. 5. 21 and 22,) the first representing 
the intire plant on a diminished scale, the second the general inflorescence and leaf, of their natural size, 
