OCCASIONAL NOTES. 171 



from the tea-gardens to Maxwell's Hill, and also on the 

 Hermitage Hill. On examining it at leisure, I found it to agree 

 very well with the description of a rare plant known as 

 Petrosavia stelldta, Becc, described and figured in the Nuove 

 Giornale Botanico Italiano, iii 7, t. 1. BECCARI collected his 

 specimens in Borneo, on Mount Poe, near Sarawak, at 3,000 

 feet altitude, and, as far as I am aware, it has not been collect- 

 ed there since, and it has not hitherto been recorded from the 

 Malay Peninsula. It, therefore, forms another addition to the 

 Bornean types to be met with in the Malay Peninsula. 



Petrosavia is a slender, wiry, yellow herb with an under- 

 ground rhizome, over three inches long, covered with small 

 papery scale leaves. The stems rise from the end of the 

 rhizome, one or more together, from three to seven inches tall, 

 often slightly zigzag, and thickest at the base, where they are 

 covered with numerous crowded sheathing leaves, lanceolate 

 acuminate in shape, about \ inch long. The stems are slen- 

 derer above, and the leaves fewer and smaller. The flowers 

 are arranged in a corymbose raceme, they are small, one- 

 eighth of an inch across, yellow, and on rather long (f inch) pedi- 

 cels. The bracts resemble the upper leaves, and are about \ 

 inch long. There are two to each flower. The sepals are lance- 

 ate acuminate, short and small. The petals much larger, 

 ovate, blunt, alternating with the sepals. The stamens are six 

 in number, three opposite the sepals, and three opposite the 

 petals. Their filaments are shorter than the petals, thickened 

 at the base and tapering upwards. The anthers are oblong, 

 rounded, dorsifixed, the cells divergent at the base, and 

 splitting along the edge. The pistils are three, connate at 

 the base, widely spreading above. The ovaries are conical 

 follicular, tapering to the small round stigmas. The carpels 

 are three in number, and split on the inner and upper face 

 nearly as far as the stigmas ; they each contain about twelve 

 elliptic, oblong, brown, nodulose seeds, which are full of oil 

 and proteids, but contain no starch. Mr. PERCY GROOM, during 

 his residence in Singapore, has examined them carefully under 

 the microscope, and has discovered the embryo, which had 

 escaped all other observers. It is very minute, and resembles 



