33 



A perennial diffuse herb. Root thick, long, almost cylindrical. 

 Leaves crowded at the neck of the rhizome, sometimes fully 1' long, 

 heart-shaped or the lowest sometimes renate, of a beautiful lustre, 

 longitudinally seven-nerved, plicate, conspicuously veined, above 

 dark-green and smooth, beneath paler and scantily strigulose, un- 

 dulate at the margin, blunt or emarginate at the apex, at the base 

 gradually tapering into the petiole, which is in its lower part chan- 

 nelled and ciliate and in its upper part almost cylindrical and but 

 slightly furrowed. Stem-leaves few, roundish or oval, short-petioled 

 or sessile. Flowers crowded in corymbose panicles, without scent. 

 Peduncles -J" long or shorter. Calyx deeply five-cleft, not enlarged 

 in fructification, as well as the peduncles beset with short appressed 

 grey hair ; its lobes orbicular-ovate, appressed, hardly longer than 

 1'". Corolla short salver-shaped, with exception of the beards of 

 the faux glabrous, five-lobed, at the junction of the lobes somewhat 

 folded ; the lobes rotmdish, quincuncial in bud, l|-2^"' broad, above 

 of dark- beneath of pale-blue ; the tube measuring hardly 1'", outside 

 livid, inside yellowish-green ; fornices glabrous, opposite to the lobes 

 of the calyx, measuring about 4'", outside cyan-blue, emarginate and 

 pale at the apes, at the margin not distinctly papillate but finely 

 wrinkled ; the faux between the fornices above the point of the inser- 

 tion of the stamens slightly bearded. Stamens 5, enclosed, opposite 

 to the lobes of the calyx. Anthers free, introrse, connivent, glabrous, 

 yellow, 5'" long, two-celled, dorsifixed, oblong-ovate, emarginate at 

 the apex and base ; the cells bursting in their whole length. Pollen 

 pale-yellow, consisting of globular grains. Filaments about as long 

 as the anthers, glabrous, terete, inserted towards the summit of the 

 corolla-tube. Ovaries smooth, innate with their base to the very 

 narrow pale disk. Style cylindrical, about ^"' long or little longer, 

 as well as the stigma pale and glabrous. Stigma bilobed, its divi- 

 sions outward rounded. Carpidia about three times as long as the 

 calyx, almost cordate, dorsally compressed, rather acute, glabrous, 

 at the margin wing-like expanded and irregularly denticulated, 

 4-6'" long, forming a tetragonous-hemispherical fruit, at their lateral 

 acute marguis free, protruding at their base. Seeds pendent from 

 the summit of the cavity, oblique-ovate, turgid, smooth, about 3'" 

 long. Receptacle tetragonous-conical, as long as the carpels, ter- 

 minated by the style. Cotyledons almost elliptical. Radicle very 

 short. 



One of the most singular and beautiful of the few endemic plants 

 of the Chatham-Islands. Without flowers it resembles more a Funkia 



E 



