48 1 Contributions towards a Flora of Ceylon. 



persistent, covered with shining woolly tomentum, deeply 5-parted, 

 lobes linear-lanceolate, about equal. Corolla hypogynous, gamo- 

 petalous, rotate- subcampanulate, white. Tube very short : limb deeply 

 5-parted, lobes obovate-elliptical, obtuse, a little longer than the caly- 

 cine segments. Stamens 4, with the rudiment of a fifth, alternate with 

 the divisions of the corolla, included : filaments short free, at length 

 recurved : anthers subglobose, 1 -celled, free, dehiscing by a trans- 

 verse slit. Hypogynous disk annular. Ovary free, pubescent, ovoid- 

 conical, 1 -celled, but apparently 2-celled from the approximation of 

 the prominent placentae : placenta 2, parietal, each with two divari- 

 cate laminae which are ovuliferous only at their extremities. Style 

 short, persistent. Stigma obtuse. Capsule ovate-oblong, scarcely 

 longer than the persistent. Calyx 1- celled, 2-valved, with a loculi- 

 cidal dehiscence, the valves bearing the placentae along their middle. 

 Seeds numerous, small, elliptical, pendulous, compressed. Testa 

 brown, reticulated. 



Obser. — The genus Isanthera was first established by 

 Nees von Esenbeck in the 17th Vol. of the ' Linnaean Trans- 

 actions,' and so far as I can learn — not having the volume 

 beside me to consult — he considered it related to Verbascum. 

 Endlicher in his ' Genera Plantarum,' places it doubtfully at 

 the end of Solanacece, with the observation that it " perhaps 

 belongs to Cyrtandracece" in which latter order it is placed 

 doubtfully by De Candolle. The plant which I have here 

 described I have no doubt belongs to the genus Isanthera, 

 notwithstanding that it wants the polygamous character as- 

 cribed to it by Nees. Of the present plant I have examined 

 numerous specimens from different parts of the Island, both 

 in the recent and dried state, without having been able to 

 detect a single flower that was not hermaphrodite. This 

 fact leads me to suspect, that the specimens of the species 

 on which Nees founded the genus, were not in a good state 

 for examination. The corolla is very fugaceous in my plant, 

 and is no doubt the same in his, and this may have led him 

 to suspect that his plant bore female flowers destitute of 



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