208 Mr. J. Miers on the genus Streptosolen. 



plane, but enlarges more in a campanular form with five short 

 rounded lobes, the front lobe being broadest ; it is however often 

 4-lobed by the confluence of the two upper smaller segments; 

 the two' lower stamens are not short, dilated, hemicyclical, and 

 fixed in a ventricose swelling below the throat, but are here 

 straight, slender and filiform, originating in the contracted base 

 of the funnel-shaped tube and opposite the broader lobe of the 

 border; the two upper filaments are also straight and nearly 

 erect, although they are fixed in the mouth of the campanulate 

 border, with one of the lobes of each anther almost abortive or 

 dwarfish, as in Browallia ; all the filaments are terete, not greatly 

 dilated, and although at first hairy, they become at last quite 

 glabrous. The style resembles that of Browallia in being swollen 

 at its summit, where it is hollow and corrugated into numerous 

 transverse folds ; but the stigma is of an essentially different form, 

 being suddenly expanded into two broad, compressed, auriculate, 

 equal lobes, at first con ni vent, afterwards ringent, with a large 

 opening in the sinus into the tubular summit of the style (and 

 which in the living state is probably filled with mucous matter), 

 thus approaching more to the form of the stigma of Petunia. 

 The whole plant possesses much the habit of Stemodia suffruti- 

 cosa, with which genus and with Pterostigma there exists some 

 analogy in the form of the stamens and stigma. It will however 

 constitute a genus belonging to the tribe Petuniea, connecting 

 this group still more closely with the Salpiglossidece by Browallia. 

 The name now proposed for this genus is derived from arpeirrb^, 

 tortus, aooiXrjv, tubus, because of the torsion of the lower portion 

 of the tube of the corolla. 



Streptosolen (gen. nov.). — Calyx tubulosus, 4-5-nervis, reti- 

 culata, 4-5-dentatus, dentibus insequalibus, persistens. Co- 

 rolla infundibuliformi-tubulosa, subcurvula, limbo campanu- 

 lato, subobliquo, brevissime 5-lobo, lobis apiculatis aut eraar- 

 ginatis, antico paulo latiore, tubi torsione mox resupinato, sesti- 

 vatione replicativa. Stamina 4, didynama, inclusa, valde in- 

 sequalia, 2 inferiora (in alabastri antica) imo tubi orta, 2 supe- 

 riora brevissima fauce inserta ; filamenta teretia, recta, pilosa, 

 mox glabra ; antherce 2-lobse, subdeclinatse, lobis ovatis, imo 

 late divaricatis, margine dehiscentibus, singulo receptaculo 

 pollinifero globoso intus instructo, superiorum lobo altero mi- 

 nimo casso. Ovarium ovatum, disco glanduloso stipitato imo 

 cinctum, apice parce pilosum, demum glabrum, 2-loculare, 

 placentis carnosis dissepimento adnatis, multiovulatis. Stylus 

 filiformis, apice incrassatus, subincurvus, tubulosus, et trans- 

 verse rugoso-crenulatus. Stigma valde dilatatum, imo late 

 cordatum, 2-labiatum, lobis sequalibus obtusis conniventibus, 



