PLETHIANDRA SAHEBTI. 267 



ing among its own roots; for the abbreviated axillary branch con- 

 tinues- still to produce its flowers. Dichotomy is of course pro- 

 duced by the arrest of the terminal bud and the growth of the pair of 

 axillary buds into leafing branches: where they are produced flower- 

 ing still occurs for a second axillary bud arises below the first 

 which becomes a cushion of flowers. The stems are glabrous ; they 

 are never exactly green, but when quite young are suffused with a 

 dull claret colour becoming a livid brown, whereafter a greyish 

 brown cork layer is developed, with lenticels rather abundantly 

 scattered in it, and cracking longitudinally. The leaves are sessile, 

 large, attaining 30 cm. in length by 12 cm. in breadth, ovate, round- 

 ed at the base, and where they touch, as they usually do, the tissues 

 are apt to die on account of the water or damp earth caught and 

 held by them, and into which the adventitious roots may find a 

 way. When young the leaf-blades rise from the stem at an angle 

 of about 60° but the angle at the base increases with age: above 

 the middle the blade arches over: and the leaf-tip usually is point- 

 ed somewhat earthwards. The midrib is thick and prominent on 

 the lower side of the leaf, but grooved above : at right angles from 

 it arise 3 or 4 pairs of strong lateral nerves, as figured above, in- 

 creasing in strength and in distance from each other upwards: the 

 uppermost of these usually is at one-third of the length of the leaf 

 from the axil : the lower of these pairs fade away under the margin 

 but the top and strongest reaches the apex, and rejoins the midrib. 

 The reticulum is indistinct, and mainly transverse to the long axis 

 of the blade. The margins of the leaves are slightly undulate, and 

 also slightly decurved. Both sides of the blade shine, the upper 

 being darker than the lower. When old the axillary cushions from 

 which the flowers are produced may be 1 cm. in diameter, and 

 raised 4 mm. in the centre, which is studded with old pedicel- 

 stumps. There may be as many as 10 buds present at one time 

 in various stages of development, but one or rarely two open 

 flowers only. The ovary with the calyx, indistinguishable without 

 section, is of a reddisli magenta, smooth and about 3 mm. long, 

 the margin quite even. The petals are 6, contorted in the bud, 

 expanded almost at right angles to the axis of the horizontal flower 

 in anthesis, obovate-efliptic, up to 6 mm. long. The stamens are 

 all directed to the upper side of the flower, and are usually 28 in 

 number: the filament is 3 mm. long and the anther 2 mm. long: 

 the filaments are attenuated just under the anther but not append- 

 aged: the anthers are just spurred at the base, and dehisce by an 

 apical pore. The style is 9 mm. long, decurved in its basal half so 

 as to pass to the lower side of the flower, and then uprising towards 

 the stigma. The receptacle is very concave, which accounts for 

 part of the greater length of the style over the stamens. The 

 loculi are 6, and the ovules are very numerous. 



Pletliiandra Sahebii, foliis P. (Medinillopsi) Beccarianae 

 similis, facile distinguitur pedicellis et floribus: ab speciebus aliis 

 generis praecipue foliis differt. 



R. A. Soc, No. 77, 1917. 



