382 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
pente cuspidatis, penninerviis, nervis basalibus palmatis, late- 
ralibus utrinque 5-8, membranaceis, concoloribus, reticulatis, 
subtus nervis prominulis ; petiolo utrinque parum incrassato, 
limbo dimidio breviore : panicula ^ axillari, glaberrima,magna, 
iterum iterumque divisa, amplissime et late expansa, ramis 
ramulisque bracteolatis, patentissimis, sursum decrescentibus, 
tertiariis gracilibus, spicatis, axillulis bracteolatis, approxi- 
matis, flores 3-4 fasciculatos brevissime pedicellatos gerenti- 
busj floribus minimis. — In Surinamo, ad Pai’amaribo. 
This plant is quite unknown to me, the above characters 
being derived from Dr. Eichler^s description and from a portion 
of the inflorescence which he has figured. The leaves are 6-9 
inches long, 4-7^ inches broad, on a petiole 4 inches long. The 
panicle is 24 inches long ; its rachis is round and stout ; the 
primary branches 9 inches long, very straight, spreading out 
expansively, 2 lines thick, diminishing upwards gradually in 
length, with the secondary branchlets inch apart, and more 
than 3 inches long ; the tertiary branchlets, also straight, and 
spreading at right angles, 3 lines apart and 1-1^ inch long, 
with bracteoles 1 line distant, and which bear in their axillules 
three or four flowers, ^ line in diameter, upon very short pe- 
dicels. 
63. Disciphania. 
This is another genus of Dr. Eichler^s, described in Martins’s 
‘ Flora Brasiliensis,’ the type being a plant from the river 
Amazonas, which bears a very strong resemblance to a Jateorhiza. 
It is a climbing plant, strigosely pilose in every part, with some- 
what ovate leaves, deeply cordate, leaving a broad sinus between 
two rounded basal lobes, and divided at the summit into three 
almost parallel lanceolate-oblong segments ; they are 5-7-nerved 
at base, on a petiole three-fourths of the length of the blade. 
It has one or two supra-axillary racemes with a slender rachis as 
long as the petiole, very pilose, spicated, with many alternate, 
approximated, sessile flowers ; each flower rises out of a small 
pilose bract, is glabrous, depressed-globose or subtrigonous in 
the bud j it has six equal sepals in two series, which are subequal, 
elliptic, and membranaceous; six equal petals, much shorter 
than the sepals, the three exterior twice the breadth of the three 
inner ones, all extremely thick and fleshy, closely compacted 
and depressed into a subtrigonoid form, leaving a hollow in the 
centre for the stamens, which thus appear sunk within a fleshy 
disk, nearly as in Anomospermum ; in the centre are three free 
stamens, with almost obsolete filaments, each having a broad 
