ON SOUTH-AMEEICAN APOCYKACEiE. 129 



Macrosiphonia. 



Of this genus, one of the handsomest and most peculiar of the family, several species 

 have been enumerated by different botanists, who have not been quite in accord respect- 

 ing them. I will here, therefore, endeavour to point out those which may be received as 

 valid species. On account of its very large flowers it is here placed at the head of the 

 EcMtecB. Prom their hollow or herbaceous stems they are aU (perhaps) annual plants, 

 springing from a perennial tuberous rootstock. 



1. Macrosiphonia Velame, Miill. I. c. p. 138, tab. 43: Echites Velame, St.-Hil. Mem. Mus. xii. 334; 

 Stadelm. Bot. Zeit. 1341, Beibl. 61 ; A. DC. I. c. p. 471. In Brasilia, prov. Minas Geraes : v. s. in 

 herb, meo ex loc. cit. (Claussen). 



A species so-called from its vernacular name, derived from its velvety clothing. It 

 has a tuberous perennial root, producing several (perhaps annual) erect, fistulous, 

 woolly, simple stems, 1-2 feet high, with axils f-1 in. apart ; leaves elliptic-oblong, sub- 

 cordate at the base, acute towards the apex, and mucronate, densely clothed above with 

 white arachnoid hairs, and covered beneath with dense woolly, yellowish, long tomentum, 

 undulate on the margins, If- 2 J in. long, f-l^ in. broad, on woolly petioles 1 line long ; 

 peduncle solitary in one of the upper axils, erect, stoutish, densely lanate, 1-2 in. long, 

 supporting 2 flowers on pedicels 3 lines long, furnished at the base with a slender 

 subulate bract 7 lines long ; sepals subulately linear, gradually broader at the base, with 

 involute margins, tomentous outside, glabrous within, 9 lines long, each with 6-8 minute 

 internal scales ; tube of corolla 3-4 in. long, narrowly cylindrical, densely tomentous, 

 swollen above for ^ of its length into a tubular expansion 5 lines broad, smooth inside, 

 with 5 woolly lines below the contraction, upon which the stamens are inserted ; seg- 

 ments glabrous inside, woolly at the base outside, roundish, subspathulate, 1 in. long 

 and broad, crenulately crispate on the margin ; disk of 5 oblong lobes, shorter than the 

 2 glabrous oblong ovaries ; 2 follicles, erect, terete, subtorulose, pilose, 8 in. long, 2 lines 

 thick. 



3. Macrosiphonia Gtjaranitica, Miill. I. c. p. 139 : Echites Guaranitica, St.-Hil. Bull. Soc. Philom. 



1834, p. 77 ; Mem. Mus. xii. 334; A. DC. I. c. p. 473 (in parte). In Brasilia, prov. Rio Grande, 



ad Missiones S. Prancisco de Borja : non vidi. 

 A species much like the preceding. Its simple erect stems are covered with long, 

 slender, entangled, white hairs ; leaves broadly ovate or oblong, subcordate at the base, 

 shortly cuspidate and mucronate at the apex, margins scarcely revolute, subpilose above, 

 incano-tomentous beneath, IJ-lf in. long, l-lf in. broad, obsoletely petiolate ; raceme 

 1-5-flowered, on a peduncle often very long, all covered with arachnoid tomentum, 

 bracts narrowly linear, 2-3 times shorter than the sepals ; sepals very narrow, linear, 

 arachnoid, 6 or 7 times shorter than the tube of the corolla, villous within, with 2-6 

 basal scales ; tube of corolla slender for f or f of its length, the rest campanularly 

 dilated ; segments obovate, as long as the swollen portion of the tube, crispate ; ovaries 

 glabrous ; coma 3 times as long as the seeds. 



