486, 3PENTAND11IA MONOGYNIA. MuSO. 



fore this time, has produced other shoots ° these continue to grow? 

 up, blossom, &c. in succession for several years. 



Their Leaves are exactly as in the cultivated sorts.— Spadix sim- 

 ple, drooping. — Spatkes partial, numerous, ovate, concave, smooth, 

 crimson on the inside* outside darker-coloured, six or eight of these,. 

 nearest the base of the spadix embrace a double row of female? 

 hermaphrodite flowers, and are not always deciduous, but sometimes, 

 wither, and. remain till the seeds are ripe. All the rest, and they are 

 very numerous., expanding in succession for two or three months, 

 embrace similar double rows of abortive, or male-hermaphrodite. 

 flowers ; which, with their spathes, are always deciduous. — Calyx no 

 other than the just mentioned spathes. — Corol of two, dissimilar pe^. 

 tals ; the exterior one with an unequally five-toothed apex, which 

 soon becomes revolute, the inner one sometimes called the nectary, 

 half the length of the exterior one; when forcibly expanded they are 

 Dearly round, but in their natural state oblong, and deeply c> ncave, 

 with an emargmate apex, and incurved, ensiform point.— filaments in 

 both flowers five, with sometimes the rudiment of a, sixth. Anthers, 

 in the male-hermaphrodite linear, and as long as the filaments; in 

 the female-hermaphrodite minute, and without pollen. — Germ in- 

 ferior, oblong, three-celled, with from four to live or six rows of ovula in 

 each cell, regularly attached to a central, fleshy receptacle axis ; by 

 their growth they are forced from the regular situation in which they are 

 found in the germ, their insertions cannot then be easily traced ; in the 

 male-hermaphrodite they are abortive. Style cylindric. Stigma three.,, 

 lobed, large and clammy. — Bernj. oblong, tapering to each end ; of 

 a soft fleshy consistence, smooth and yellow, marked, longitudinally 

 with five ribs, three-celled ; the partitions distinct, but soft and pulpy, 

 and no doubt disappear when dry, and long kept.— Seeds numer- 

 ous, the size of a small pea, round, turbinate, tubercled; the exterior 

 half dark-chesnut or blackish toward the umbilicus, which is a large 

 circular cavity ; light brown. Integument, &c. as described and figur- 

 ed by Gaertner, Carp. i. 2S. 9, £> 11. 



