﻿416 ON THE BOTANY OF JAPAN. 



Allium Schoenoprasum abounds in the north of Japan, as might be expected. A. 

 Thunhergii is the Japanese analogue of A. Canadense ; as is A. Victor ialis (from the 

 northern part of Japan, and Kamtschatka, ranging thence to Eastern Europe) of the 

 Eastern American A. tricoccum. 



Fluggea Japonica of Kichard, which probably includes more than one of Kunth's 

 species, abounds on the shores of Iviu-siu, &c. None of the other Ophiojwgonece, or of 

 the Aspidistrece of Japan, were met with. I have not seen Roxhurghia Japonica of 

 Blurae ; perhaps it is not indigenous to Japan. 



I now come to a very interesting plant, of which two or three specimens were gath- 

 ered on Cape Komanzoff, in fruit only, but with all the parts of the flower so far 

 persistent that the whole structure has been made out, and secured by drawings. It 

 may be briefly described as a Helonias with few flowers, a single and slender style sur- 

 mounted by a depressed-capitate stigma, and the seeds appendaged only at the hilum.* 

 Two things are noteworthy respecting this plant: — 1. Its conforaiity to the rule, if it 

 may be so called, that peculiar Eastern North American tj-pes have theii- counter- 

 parts in Japan. For the original and only true Helonias — one of the rarest plants 

 in the United States — is found only in a few localities in New Jersey, the adjacent 

 parts of Pennsylvania and Delaware, and in Virginia. 2. Its single style, with even 

 the stigmas united into one, annihilates one of the two diagnostic characters of the 

 order Melanthacece. There is reason for supposing that the common Cham<elirium 

 luteiun (Veratrmn luteum, Linn., Helonias dioica, Pursh.), of the Atlantic United States, 

 likewise has a Japanese counterpart in the Melanthium luteum of Thunberg, or He- 

 lonias ? Jajwnica, R. & S. ; but this plant has not been rediscovered. 



Veratrum nigrum, exactly the European and Siberian plant, was also collected. Our 



* HELONIOPSIS, Nov. Gen. 



Flores hermapliroditi. Perigonium sesphyllum, fere herbaceum, phyllis Imeari-spathulatis persistentibus. 

 Stamina 6, imtc basi perigonii phyllorum inserta, eadem subsuperantia : filamenta filiformia, persistentia : an- 

 theroe oblongo-sagittatae, sinu profundo affixa, extrorsoe, biloculares, longitudinaliter debiscentes. Stylus 

 filifonnis, e sinu ovarii profundo longe exsertus : stigma peltato-capitatum, integerrimum. Capsula chartacea, 

 usque ad medium obcordalo-triloba vel bUoba, lobis divergentibus, trilocularis, loculicida. Semina in placenta 

 brevi nxili plurima, anatropa, globoso-ovalia ; testa subcrustacea conformi, peUiculo reticulato tenui arete 

 obvoluta, apice nuda, ad bilum in carunculam fungosam semine vix angustiorem producta. Embryo in basi 

 albuminis camosi subinclusus, eodem plus dimidio brevior, cyUndraceus, super radiculam brevissimam quasi 

 truncatam leviter constrictus. — Herba paludosa, facie omnino Heloniadis btdlates, foliis tamen brevioribus, 

 florlbus in racemo paucis majoribus. 



Heloniopsis paucifloea. Cape Eomanzoff, northwestern extremity of Jesso. 



