442 PHANEROGAMIA. 



Stipules minute, ovate-subulate, caducous. Leaflets ovate-elliptical or 

 oblong-ovate, more or less acuminate, rounded at the base, membra- 

 naceous, 3 to 5 inches long, green and glabrate both sides, or (espe- 

 cially in var. (3.) pubescent underneath, as are the partial petioles. 

 Racemes 3-lO-floivered, rather shorter than the leaves. Flowers an 

 inch and a half long. Upper lip of the calyx recurved in flower, very 

 large even for the genus, strongly emarginate or somewhat twodobed, 

 the lobes rounded ; the short lower lip three-cleft, its lateral lobes ovate 

 or triangular-ovate and obtuse; the middle one more triangular and 

 acutish or acute. Corolla purple, apparently dark reddish-purple ; the 

 obovate and emarginate vexillum rather longer than the wings and 

 keel. Androecium and pistil almost straight. Ovary silky-canescent. 

 many-ovuled. Legume linear-oblong, 4 or 5 inches long in the speci- 

 men, an inch or more in width, straight, compressed, glabrous, when 

 half grown minutely silky, slightly tricarinate at the ventral suture, 

 apiculate, short-stipitate. Seeds 6 or 7. 



In the dried specimens the lower lobes of the calyx often appear to 

 be lanceolate and acute, as they are described and figured by Gaudi- 

 chaud. But this is owing to the involution of their margins : when 

 explanate they are seen to be as above described, and as in C. pubes- 

 cens, Hook. & Am. 1. c, which is evidently no more than a downy- 

 leaved variety of this species. These lobes are somewhat variable in 

 shape. In the specimen from Kauai they are unusually broad and 

 blunt, and the upper lip is more decidedly lobed ; but no other diffe- 

 rence is remarked. In Gaudichaud's figure, the flowers are repre- 

 sented considerably too large. — The specimen collected by Chamisso 

 must have borne shorter pods than ordinary, as they are said by 

 Vogel to be only two inches and a half long, and of more than half 

 that width: 



71. MUCUNA, Adans. 



1. MtJCUNA GIGANTEA, DC 



Mucuna gigantea, DC. Prodr. 2, p. 405 ■ Wight, in Hook. Bot. Misc. 2, p. 357, 

 Suppl. t. 14; Guill. Zeph. Tait. p. 65. 



