New Solomon Islands Plants . 503 
The peculiarity is in the fruit. In the flowering stage the 
four-celled ovary appears undivided, but soon after the fall of 
the corolla the carpels separate, except at the tips, and 
develope slender, almost filiform stalks, about six inches long, 
curving outwards and forming a kind of depressed pyriform 
framework. The seed-bearing portions of the carpels are 
terete, almost horizontal, and joined together by their tips, 
forming a cross, the arms of which are about an inch and a 
half long and a quarter of an inch in diameter. Each carpel 
contains one fluted seed. 
This highly curious tree was collected by Mr. Comins in 
San Christoval. He describes it as about fifteen feet high, and 
growing by a river-side. In Tahiti it is said to grow on the 
mountains, and attain a height of eight to ten metres. It 
must be very rare, one would imagine, in Tahiti, or some of 
the many English travellers who have botanized there would 
have collected such a very remarkable thing. 
Noteworthy among the novelties of which the specimens 
are insufficient for description, are a species of Drimys , a 
Sterculia , an apparently new genus of Rutaceae-Todalieae, 
several species of Canarium besides the one described below, 
several Olacineae, Sapindaceae, Myrtaceae and Melastomaceae, 
a species of the New Caledonia araliaceous genus Delarbrea , 
several Sapotaceae one having very large seeds, a Cyrtandra 
or allied new genus, about half a dozen species of Ficus , as 
many Pandani, Palmae, Aroideae, Orchideae, and Scitamineae. 
A new genus of Pandanaceae, discovered by Dr. Guppy in 
Faro Island, is specially interesting. It is a tree fifty feet 
high, having long narrow leaves and branching female spadices 
three or four feet long. The male inflorescence is unknown, 
and the specimen consists of a leaf and detached female 
flowers. Dr. Guppy also collected one new species of Myrme - 
codia and two of Hydnophytum , whose thick, short, tuberous, 
galleried stems are inhabited by ants. 
The discovery of Pueraria Thunbergiana in San Christoval 
by Mr. Comins is an interesting geographical fact. This plant 
is very common in China and Japan, where it is also culti- 
