162 THE FLORIST AND 



rupted by the death of lier husband, Mrs. Layton has been able to procure 

 authentic specimens of the disputed plant. These specimens, shipped alive, 

 have unluckily died on the voyage, but their remains have been enough to 

 establish their identity with the drawing of Mr. Reeves, and it is also from 

 these specimens, without flowers or fruit, that Sir Wm. Hooker has ventured 

 to determine generically the species under the name of AraliaiJ) papyrifera.* 

 The author admits, however, how much this conjecture has need of confirm- 

 ation, and prudent botanists will not adopt it without a reservation. In 

 any case, they will hardly fail to recognize an araliacious plant in one with 

 soft wood, abundant and spongy pith, alternate leaves, fasciculate towards 

 the top of the branches, long petioled, heart-shaped, lobed and palminerved, 

 covered with a starry pubescence, and furnished with large stipules more or 

 less adnate to the petiole. The doubt then is in the genus, and this can 

 only, in a family so polymorphous in the vegetable organs, find its solution 

 in the study of the characters of the flowers and fruits. Waiting this desired 

 result, we will give some notes on the habitat, the dimensions of the plant, 

 and the characters of its branches. 



It appears that it is in the marshy forests of the northern part of the 

 island of Formosa that this species is actually confined ; nevertheless, adds 

 Mrs. Layton, certain books (Chinese ?) indicate at this time a second habitat, 

 and more anciently in many localities in China. Although the specimen 

 received at Kew had, from the crown of the root, a stalk of but 13 inches, 

 and a diameter of but 1J inches, the dimensions of the grown plant are ap- 

 parently those of a tree. At least the Chinese, sent to seek a plant, spoke 

 always of the difficulty of transporting an entire "tree." On the other 

 hand, a dried specimen, collected by Mrs. Layton for Captain Wm. Loring, 

 who has generously given it to the Museum of Natural History at Kew, 

 consists of a stalk (or rather branch) three feet three inches long, and which 

 moreover does not represent an entire plant. The pith occupies in these 

 branches or stalks comparatively greater space than in our European elder. 

 The root is thick, fusiform, as woody as the stalks. The large stalk is striate 

 or channeled, marked circularly with the annular scars made by the falling 

 leaves ; it presents on the transverse section a moderately thick zone of bark, 

 then a larger one of pale wood, and last a thick disk of white medullary 

 tissue. This pith in the thick stalks separates easily from the wood, but 



* A. (?) papyrifera : caule inermo erecto striato annulate* intus copiose albissimo medulloso, 

 foliis terminalibus longe petiolatis amplis palmatim 5 lobis subtus precipue junioribus stellato 

 sub-ferrugineo tomentosis lobis lateralibus bilobis terminali trilobo, omnibus acutis serratis, 

 petiole vasi stipulis 2 raagnis sublatis (aucto)." — Hook. 



