of 1700 toises upon the Andes, along with the geneisi Alstonia,, 
Escallonia and Wintera. The greater number, however, are 
found in the temperate regions of those mountains, at a height 
of between 300 and 900 toises. There they adhere sometimes 
to the trunks of trees, along with various species of Epiden- 
drum and Dendrobium, and sometimes to the perpendicular 
faces of rocks which overhang the water. The individuals be- 
longing to the genus Piper are, as this learned traveller adds, 
separated from the Peperomice by this mark, that wherever the 
latter were observed upon the Andes, the former were found to 
be at a greater distance from the limits of perpetual snow, by 
as much as 200 toises. 
Of the genus Peperomia alone, M. De Humboldt enu- 
merates no fewer than 44 species, the most of which are new. 
United with the genus Piper ^ as it stands in Roemer and 
ScHULTz's Syst. Veget. its species amount to 225, of which 77 
were first discovered by M^I. Humboldt and Bonpland. 
The present individual is also one found by them on the trunks 
of trees, in moist and uncultivated places, between Caraccas 
and Rio Guayare, at an elevation of 460 toises, flowering in 
January. Jacquin also states the Caraccas as its native place 
of growth. Introduced into our gardens, according to Mr 
Ha WORTH, in 1802. 
It is an elegant plant, beautifully edged and dotted with 
red beneath. With us it flowers in September and October, 
and is easily cultivated in pots filled with light soil, and kept 
in the stove. 
As the seeds of this genus do not appear to ripen in this 
country, I have, in order to illustrate still more fully its gene- 
ric character, copied the dissections of the fruit from the beau- 
tiful drawings of Richard, which are published in the 1st vo- 
lume of Humboldt and Kunth's Nov. Gen. et Sp. Plant. 
The embryo does not appear in that figure, but this part is dis- 
tinctly expressed in a species of Piper on the same plate, and 
is of so dubious a character, that, while the greater number of 
botanists consider it to be dicotyledonous, MM. Richard and 
KuNTH look upon it as monocotyledonous. It consists of a 
minute pouch, enclosing a two-lobed body, which M. Kunth 
denominated the plumule, while Mirbel and others call it the 
entire embryo. A structure very nearly similar is found in the 
Nymphceacecey concerning whose classification in the Natural 
System the same difference of opinion has existed. 
Fig. 1. Portion of a spadix with flower. Fig. 2. Back view of a single flower. 
Fig. 3. Pistil. Fig. 4. Stamen. Fig. 5. Berry. Fig. 6. The same with 
the upper part of the pericarp removed. Fig. 7. The same cut through 
vertically. — AU more or less magnified. The last three figures copied from 
Richard. 
