254 ON SOTJTH-AMEETCAN APOCYNACEiE. 



ments small, ovate, erect ; stamens included, seated on a pilose ring above the base of 

 the tube ; disk of 5 lobes, surrounding the ovaries. 



This species is placed by Messrs. Bentham and Hooker (Gen. ii. p. 725) in Odontadenia, 

 to which genus it is seen to bear no relation whatever. 



16. Laseguea leptocarpa, nob. : Parsonsia leptocarpa, Hook. Am. Journ. Bot. i. p. 287. In Brasilia, 

 prov. Rio Grande do Snl. 



A species near the preceding, climbing to the top of the highest trees. It has pubescent 

 branches, with glabrous, oval, obtuse, membranaceous leaves on short petioles ; raceme 

 terminal, subsessile, covered closely with imbricating, small, acutely oval bracts ; tube 

 of corolla nearly twice the length of the sepals, pilose within towards the base ; its seg- 

 ments lanceolate, rotate ; lobes of the disk acute ; follicles 1-2 feet long, less than a line 

 thick. These are all the particulars recorded, from which it is evident that it is a species 

 closely allied to the preceding. 



17. Laseguea JjEGeei, nob. : Urechites Jageri, Miill. in Linn. xxx. p. 443. In Hayti : non vidi. 

 There is no indication whatever that this plant belongs to Urechites ; on the contrary, 



it differs in its habit and inflorescence, ia which respects it agrees well with Laseguea. 

 Midler saw only an immature flower, and, what is more important, knew nothing of its 

 fruit and seeds. Its branches are subscandent, cinereously purpurescent, glabrous, the 

 branchlets slender, paler, terete, patently hirsute ; leaves oblong- elliptic or broadly 

 oblong, subcordate at the base, suddenly and shortly acuminate, membranaceous, pilose 

 on both sides, paler beneath, with reticulate veins, lf-3J in. long, l|-2 in. broad, on 

 petioles (short, as stated in the final note) 1^2 lines long (3|-5 mm., not cm.) ; racemes 

 lateral, longer than the leaves, hirsute, with long white hairs ; peduncle many times 

 longer than the petiole, laxly many-flowered ; pedicels twice as long as the sepals, sup- 

 ported by linear-acute bracts 5|-8^ lines long, 1-1^ line broad ; sepals linear, acuminate, 

 7-8^ lines long ; corolla immature, narrowed at its base for one fourth of its length, 

 broader above, niveo-hirsute outside, with short segments ; disk distinctly 5-lobulate, a 

 little shorter than the ovaries. These characters strictly conform with Laseguea, not 

 with Urechites. 



The Laseguea calycosa, Griesh. ,=Rhodocali/x calycosus (supra, p. 140). 



Hjemadictton. 



It has abeady been stated (p. 143) that the authors of the ' Genera Plantarum ' have 

 merged this genus in Prestonia, merely on account of the presence, in both cases, of 

 certain faucial appendages in the corolla ; and some of the reasons were then given {loc. 

 cit.) for rejecting this union ; others, equally potent, are here oflFered. The plants of 

 ScBmadictyon maj generally be recognized by their habit : their leaves are very often 

 more diaphanous, of a peculiar hue, exhibiting beautifully coloured veins (whence the 

 generic name) ; the dilated axils of the branches are quite bare of the many stipules pre- 

 sent in Prestonia ; the inflorescence, upon a long simple flexuose peduncle always bare 



