Mr. J. Miers on the genus Mandragora. 39 



The corolla is of fleshy texture, about an inch long, 9 lines in 

 diameter at the mouth, and somewhat broader in the middle, 

 being contracted at the base to a diameter of 4 lines ; it is smooth 

 outside and woolly within; the lobes of the border are quite 

 glabrous, nearly round, and reflexed, the margins overlapping 

 each other ; they are of much thinner texture, and in sestivation 

 the larger lobe is altogether interior, the adjoining one being 

 generally exterior, while the intermediate lobes are convolutely 

 imbricated ; the filaments are quite erect, 9 lines long, terete 

 above, much flattened below, and inserted in the contracted base 

 of the tube ; they are pubescent in bud, quite smooth after the 

 flower opens, the anthers being 3 lines long and \^ line broad. 

 The ovarium is 4 lines long, conical, 3 lines broad at base, where 

 it is encircled by a large yellow fleshy 10-grooved disc, 4 or 5 

 lines in diameter. The capsule is oval, smooth, somewhat 

 stipitate upon the withered disc, is 10 lines long, 7 lines in dia- 

 meter, with a coriaceous operculum and a large fleshy coriaceous 

 honeycombed receptacle bearing many flattened reniform seeds, 

 of about a line in diameter. The ten nerves of the persistent 

 calyx become thickened, hard, and woody, the intermediate por- 

 tion of the tube being dried and reticulated, almost cancellately 

 so. I observed that the style falls away on the withering of the 

 corolla, and is not mucronately persistent on the berry, as stated 

 by Nees and Endlicher. I noticed also in the living flower the 

 constant character of two or three processes at irregular distances, 

 white, fleshy, compressed, linear, pointed, and two or three lines 

 long, between the calyx and corolla, and originating apparently 

 from the base of the former. I have not been able to meet with 

 any native specimen of this plant by which to ascertain whether 

 this be as constant a feature as that observed in a cultivated 

 state*. 



Mandragora. 



This genus, though diff'ering widely from Atropa in habit, 

 greatly resembles it in the form of its calyx and corolla, and the 

 structure of its fruit : as in Atropa y the lobes of its corolla possess 

 an imbricated sestivation. The following is an amended generic 

 character : — 



Mandragora, Tournef. (Char, emend.). — Ca/?/^ urceolato-tubu- 

 losus, 5-angularis, laciniis 5, lineari-acutis, nervo prominulo 

 notatis, erectis, tubo fere duplo longioribus, in fructu auges- 

 cens et persistens. Corolla infundibuliformis, limbo 5-partito, 

 laciniis subrotundatis, expansis, sestivatione imbricatis. Sta- 

 mina 5, sub-sequalia, inclusa ; fdamenta infra medium corollae 



* Full generic details of this genus will be shown in a .sup]ilonientary 

 plate of the 2nd vol. of the * lUustr. South Anicr. Plants.' 



