368 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
siclerably in their habit, especially in the nervation of their leaves, 
we may be nearly certain that this character will be found ac- 
companied by some dissimilarities in their floral and seminal 
structure. So it has occurred with a plant from the Rio Negro, 
which I proposed as the type of a new genus, and named 
Elissarrhena loiigipes in my Synopsis of this family (Ann. & 
Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3. vol. xiii. p. 124 j vide supra, p. 18). 
This species has been since described and figured by Dr. Eichler 
under the name of Anomospermum grandifolium. Its branches 
are fistulose, with very large leaves, upon unusually long and 
stiff petioles : these leaves are flaccid in texture, conspicuously 
5-nerved at the base, the nerves being outwardly branched, 
little divaricating, extending in a nearly parallel direction for 
three-fourths of the length of the leaf, when they anastomose in 
an arching manner with the few lateral nerves which spring from 
the upper portion of the midrib ; these nerves are all prominent 
and shining on both sides, as are also the very conspicuous 
transverse veins. In Anomospermum, on the contrary, the spe- 
cies are very lofty climbers, all the branches having a wood 
which is very compact and solid to the centre ; the leaves are 
not a quarter the size of those of Elissarrhena, and upon shorter 
and slender petioles ; they are coriaceous and finely reticulated, 
with three simple slender nervures, springing from the base, 
running for a short distance near the margin, and soon anasto- 
mosing with many others that spring from the midrib, so that 
they appear almost pinuately nerved, without the transverse 
veins which form so conspicuous a feature in Elissarrhena ; or 
more frequently the nerves and reticulations are wholly immersed 
in the thick parenchyma, so that they become almost impercep- 
tible. This extreme difference in the general appearance of the 
leaves is very striking. The inflorescence in Anomospermum is 
always glabrous, normally consisting of two axillary solitary 
flowers, each upon a pedicel the length of the petiole ; but fre- 
quently upon the same plant we find in the axils a long aphyl- 
lous young branch, from which the nascent leaves have fallen 
away or are abortive, so that the inflorescence thus assumes the 
form of a very simple raceme, with two single pedicellated 
flowers in each axillule, and much longer than the entire leaf: 
the flowers are double the size, very glabrous ; the petals are so 
very thick and compressed together that they resemble a central 
fleshy disk ; the anthers consist of two oblong cells dorsally 
affixed, each cell bursting introrsely by a longitudinal fissure. 
On the other hand, in Elissarrhena the inflorescence is very 
tomentose, five sixths to nine-tenths shorter than the petiole, con- 
sisting of a peduncle with its apex separated into three very short 
branches and again divided, each brauchlet bearing three flowers 
