328 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
I have placed together the above two specimens, one with 
leaves only, the other being a portion of a leafless branch with 
the racemes alone, both certainly appertaining to the genus, 
and which, as they are both from the Himalayan region, may 
be considered to belong to one another. At first, upon a 
hasty inspection, I regarded this as the plant of H. Thomsoni; 
but on a more careful comparison, I find they must be regarded 
as distinct. The leaves have quite a differeut aspect : they are 
broader, more regularly ovate, flaccid (not thick and coriaceous), 
flattened (not undulating and rigid), not canaliculated, have not 
the same shining surface, and are not covered beneath with a 
whitish pruinose hue ; there is also some difference, in their 
venation. The branch is straight, with cupular nodes in each 
axil ^-| inch apart; the leaves are 2|-3| inches long, 1|-2| 
inches broad, on a petiole 7-8 lines long. The inflorescence 
consists of two elongated axillary racemes growing out of an 
old leafless branch, the almost glabrous, striated, slender rachis 
being 6-7 inches long, with numerous branchlets 3-6 lines 
apart, 4 lines long, each bearing three flowers upon pedicels 
1 line long ; the fifteen sepals, in ternary imbricating series 
gradually decreasing in size, are glabrous, with ciliated margins; 
they are all oval, fuscous, and veined with reddish somewhat in- 
terrupted lines; the petals, nearly the size of the inner sepals, 
are oblong, subacute, marked longitudinally with red, glandular, 
dotted lines, the three interior being somewhat smaller and fur- 
nished at their base with two small, auricular, dentiform lobes ; 
the six stamens are firmly attached to a short central receptacle 
that supports the ovaries; they are little more than half the 
size of the petals ; the short unguiform filament, only a quarter of 
their entire length, suddenly expands into an oblong, concave, very 
membranaceous connective, marked by a thick, dark, prominent 
ridge down the middle ; the anther-lobes are larger and more 
widely separated than in the preceding species, are quite mar- 
ginal, hyaline, and burst on the external edge by a longitudinal 
fissure; the ovaries are longer than the filaments, and are ter- 
minated by an erect style. 
45. Pachygone. 
The existence of several genera among Menispermacese with 
exalbuminous seeds was not known to botanists until I first in- 
dicated the fact in this genus, which was established in 1851 ; 
for it was then doubtful whether the genus Spirospermum 
really belonged to the family. Gaertner, however, in 1791, 
figured a seed, called by him Koon Zeijlanicus, which no one 
