SIR J. E. SMITH. 



89 



climbing smooth knotty stem, thickest at the base, where 

 it is accompanied by several fibrous radicles. We pre- 

 sume it to be annual. Leaves scattered, spreading on 

 short stalks smooth and membranous, about three inches 

 long, heart-shaped, dilated, abrupt, and seven-ribbed at 

 the base ; then suddenly elongated into a nearly linear, 

 entire, central, three-ribbed lobe, bluntish, with a small 

 point, the under side paler and rather downy. Stipulas 

 in pairs awl- shaped, minute. Flowers small whitish, in 

 simple axillary drooping clusters. Bracteas minute, 

 ovate, acute, solitary at the base of each partial stalk. 

 Fruit, as Plumier says, "like half that of a maple tree, 

 of a silvery hue when young, but afterwards tawny." 



B. cor data. Heart-leaved Raiania. Linn. Sp. PL, 

 1461, Ait n. 1. — {Jan Baia scandens foliis tamni Plum. 

 Ic, 148, t. 155, f. 1.) Leaves ovate, somewhat heart- 

 shaped at the base, seven ribbed. Native of the West 

 Indies, from whence it was sent to Kew gardens in 1786, 

 by Mr. Alexander Anderson. It flowers in the stove in 

 July, and we cannot but wish some accurate botanist 

 would publish a good figure and description of the plant, 

 out of respect to its name. Plumier represents the habit 

 of the root, stem, &c., much like the foregoing ; but the 

 leaves are regularly ovate, pointed more or less heart- 

 shaped at their base, and furnished with seven ribs con- 

 tinued from that part to the point. These ribs are con- 

 nected by numerous transverse veins. Inflorescence, 

 flowers, fruit much as in B. hast at a, but having seen no 

 specimen, we can say nothing respecting the stipulas 

 or bracteas, none of which are noticed in the plate.* 



B. ovata. Ovate-leaved Raiania. Swartz, Ind. Occ, 

 v. 1, 638. Mart. Mill. Diet., n. 4.— "Leaves ovate 

 pointed, three ribbed." Native of bushy places on the hills 



* It is this species wliich is figured, and forms the upper part of the 

 wreath of plants encircling the head of Ray, in the common title-page of 

 the works of the Ray Society. 



