ON SOUTH-AMEEICAN APOCTNACILE. 153 



latter it appears also to differ in its submembranaceous, sborter, narrower, lanceolate 

 leaves, acute at botb ends, and by its shorter inflorescence. 



5. Rhaptocaepus apiculatus, nob. : Echites coalita, Miill. in parte (non Veil, nee DC), I. c. p. 155. In 

 Brasilia, prov. Ceard : v. s. in herb. Mus. Brit. Crato (Grardner 1754). 



A species very distinct from Velloz's JE. coalita, and from H. Vautherii, A. DC, which 

 Miiller mingled together : he quotes Gardner's number 1755 instead of 1754, the former 

 being M versicolor, Stadelm. It is a scandent plant, with pallid, rather slender, fistu- 

 lous, glabrous, striolate, tortuous branches, with axils 6 in. apart; leaves ovate, 

 rounded at both ends, but suddenly constricted at the apex into a short, acute, almost 

 mucronate point, subcoriaceous, with entire revolute margins, subfuscous above, finely 

 corrugulated, with immersed indistinct nerves, ferruginously opake below, glabrous, the 

 nerves scarcely prominulent, S^-^ in. long, l^lf in. broad, on rather slender chan- 

 nelled petioles 5-6 lines long ; raceme axillary, reflected, nearly 2 in. long, bearing from 

 the base many approximate flowers, which are almost umbellately close towards the 

 extremity ; the very slender pedicels are 4-5 lines long ; calyx truncate and shortly 

 cupular at the base, cleft into 5 sepals ; sepals submembranaceous, linear-oblong, obtuse 

 and recurved at the apex, 2 Unes long ; tube of corolla narrow, a little swollen near the 

 base, 5 lines long, its segments 3 lines long; disk of 5 fleshy oblong lobes, nearly as 

 long as the ovary ; the capsule, in a very young half-matured state, is terete, flattened, 

 bisulcate, IJ in. long, supported by the calyx. 



DiPLADENIA. 



A genus established in 1844 by Prof A. De Candolle. It consists of several species, 

 mostly low suffruticose plants, with simple erect stems, which are fistulous, and grow 

 out of tuberiform roots ; they have few, but large, handsome campanular flowers. I 

 have separated from it many of the species, here described under Somaladenia and 

 Micradenia, which differ in many essential characters, and which also possess a 2-lobed 

 disk ; but in Dipladenia these lobes are larger and broader, and the anthers are cordate 

 at the base, not expanded into two long basal prongs. 



Besides the above exceptions, Carruthersia and Kopsia have a 2-lobed disk, 



1, Dipladenia illustris, A. DC. Prod. viii. 483; Miill. (in parte) Flor. Bras. fasc. xxvi. p. 125 (excl. 

 icon, in tab. 38) : Echites illmtris, Veil. Flor. Flum. p. 114, Icon. iii. tab. 49. In Brasilia, prov. 

 Sao Paulo : v. s. in herb, meo Itu (Weir 118) ; in prov. Sao Paulo (Ackermann). 



VeUoz found this flne species in the mountains bordering on the provinces of Rio de 

 Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Velloz's figure well represents the plant. The stem, rising out 

 of a large gongyloid root, is 8 in. high, pubescent, 2^ lines thick, simple, erect, fistulous, 

 with glandless axils 1^ in, apart, bearing 3 opposite pairs of leaves in the upper portion, 

 which are slightly divergent, ovate-oblong, subcordate at the base, shortly and suddenly 

 acuminate at the apex, submembranaceous, puberulous on both sides, more densely 



X 



