85 
MONOTROPA uNiFLORA. 
Drooping single-flowered Bird's Nest. 
DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA.— Nat. Ord. MONOTROPEJE, Nutt. Hook. Lindl. 
Gen. Char. — Perianthium simplex, tetraphyllum, foliolis basi cucullatis. 
Antherce uniloculares, bilabiatEe. Capsula supera, 4-5-locularis, 4)-5-val- 
vis. Semina numerosa, arillata. 
Monotropa uniflora ; caule unifloro, squamis approximatis, flore cernuo 
decandro. 
Monotropa uniflora, Willd. Sp. PL v. ii. p. 573. — Mich. Fl. Bot: Am. v. i. 
p. 266. — PuRSH, N. Am. Fl. v. i. p. 303. — Nutt. Gen. v. i. p. 273. — 
Elliott, Bot. of S. Carol. ^ Georg. v. i. p. 277 — Pluk. Aim. t. 209. f- 2. 
Root, according to Mr Elliott, parasitic, and attached to the roots of trees; 
in our garden growing simply in earth mixed with leaves, fibrous, fibres 
much clustered, intricately branched and anastomosing, brown. Stems 
many from the same root, more or less succulent, about six inches high, 
erect, rounded, simple, thick, white and fleshy. In the place of leaves, 
there are ovate, appressed, slightly concave, white scales, the lower ones 
at the extremity often tinged with brown. 
Flowers solitary, terminal, entirely white, fleshy, drooping, surrounded on 
all sides by several imbricated scales. Perianth single, of 5 obovate or 
somewhat spathulate, erect leaflets, slightly erose at the extremity ; at 
the base narrow, and somewhat saccate or cucuUate. Stamens quite 
white, ten in number, alternately shorter, the longer ones rather shorter 
than the perianth, erect and placed against the pistil. Filaments pubes- 
cent. Anthers large, 1 -celled, opening near the top by two transverse 
and oblique clefts. Pistil: Germen broadly ovate, with ten longitudinal 
furrows. Style rather short and thick. Stigma peltate, depressed in the 
centre, and marked with 5 rays. 
This remarkable plant was raised, probably for the first time 
in Britain, in the month of June 1823, under a common frame 
in our Botanic Garden of Glasgow, in a box of earth which 
VOL. II. 
