PLEROMA KUNTHIANUM. 
Class. 
DECANDRIA. 
(M. Kuuth’s Pleroma.) 
Natural Order, 
MELASTOMACEiE. 
Order. 
MONOGYNIA. 
Generic Character.— with an ovate tube; 
len young, involved in two deciduous bracts ; lobes 
e, deciduous. Petals obcordate. Stamens ten. 
laments pilose or glabrous. Anthers elongated, 
ched at the base. Ovary adhering to the calyx, 
ex bristly. Capsule baccate, rather dry, five-celled. 
eds cochleate. 
Specific Character. — Plant an evergreen shrub. 
’anches tetragonal, and are, as well as the petioles, 
)thed with adpressed hairs. Leaves petiolate, oblong. 
acute, five-nerved, quite entire, scabrous above from 
little bristles, but white from adpressed silky hairs be- 
neath. Pedicels hispid, axillary, one-flowered, and ter- 
minal. Tiibe of calyx campanulate, beset with stiff" 
bristles, but with the deciduous. Petals very blunt. 
Filaments and style hispid. Ovarium bristly at the 
apex, rather longer than the tube of the calyx. 
Bracteas large, deciduous, 
Synonymes.— P leroma Benthamianum ; Lasiandra 
Kunthiana. 
Like the P. petiolatum.^ figured at the close of last year’s volume, this magni- 
sent plant belongs to the sub-genus Lasiandra.^ having hairy genitals, and a dry 
ipsular fruit; whilst the true Pleromas have a berry- like fruit, and the genitals 
srfectly smooth. We find it has been enumerated and described by De Candolle 
i L. Kunthiana ; and more recently, accompanied by a figure, in the “ Botanical 
lagazine,” as P. Benthamianum. The latter specific name was applied to it by 
[r. Gardner ; but the present having the claim of priority, we have accordingly 
lopted it. 
It is a Brazilian production, for the possession of which cultivators are 
idebted to the exertions of Mr. Gardner. It was discovered by that gentleman 
1 situations partaking of a boggy character on the Organ Mountains, at an alti- 
ide of more than 3000 feet above the level of the ocean, and by him transferred 
> the Botanic Gardens at Glasgow, where it first produced flowers in the latter 
a-rt of 1842. Our illustration was taken in the garden of R. G. Loraine, Esq., at 
k^allington Lodge, where a vigorous specimen flowered in one of the stoves in 
'ctober, 1844. 
With the rest of the genus, it is a shrubby plant, having robust four-sided 
ranches, bearing ample foliage of a neat outline, remarkable for its velvety 
)ftness, and the beautiful arrangement and prominency of the veins on the under 
irface. The flowers are disposed in large thyrsoid panicles at the top of the 
loots, and possess a richness of tint unequalled by those of any of its congeners. 
