named Rafflesia. 
21 
Tt has been already remarked, that there is nothing in the 
structure of the column in Rafflesia to enable us to determine the 
Frutices ( forsan decumbentes). Folia alterna simplicia subdentata, stipulis late- 
ralibus (utrinque solitariis geminisve ) distinct is, cal/osis. Flores axillares subso/i- 
tarii, ptduuculis, quandoque brevissimis, basi bracteolatis. Urceolus abbreviatus, 
ore denticulato. Filamenta simplici serie, viginti circiter. Antherae incumbentes , 
li/ieares. Capsula chartacea. Semina axibus filiformibus valvularum subsimp/ici 
serie inserta, pedicellata, punctata, omnino Passiflorae. 
PATRIA. Africa aequinoctialis. 
1. S .pubescens, ramis tomentosis, foliis oblongo-ovatis basi obtusis : adultis pube rara 
conspersis, urceolo barbato. 
Smeathmannia pubescens. Solander l. c. 
Loc. Nat. Guinea, prope Sierra Leone, Smeathrnan, Afzelius. 
2. S. lavigata, ramis glabris, foliis oblongis ovatisve basi acutis: adultis glaberrimi* 
utrinque nitidis, urceolo imberbi inciso. 
Smeathmannia laevigata. So/and. 1. c . 
Loc. Nat. Guinea, prope Sierra Leone, Smeathrnan, Afzelius, Purdie. 
3. S. media, ramis glabris, foliis obovato-oblongis basi obtusis: adultis utrinque glabri* 
subopacis. 
Loc. Nat. Guinea, prope Sierra Leone, Smeathrnan. 
Forsan varietas S. laxiaatat. 
O 
The affinity of Smeathmannia to Paropsia of M. du Petit Thouars will probablv be 
admitted without hesitation; and its exact agreement in fruit in every important point, 
both with this genus and with Modecca, seems to leave no doubt of its belonging to 
Passiforere, with which it agrees in habit even better than Paropsia, and certainly 
much more nearly than Malesherbia, considered by M.de Jussieu (in Flor. Peruv. iii. 
p. xix.) as belonging to the same family. 
Smeathmannia differs then from the other genera of Passiflorece solely in its greater 
number of stamina, which, however, may not be really indefinite; and an approach to 
this structure is already known to exist in an unpublished genus ( Thompsonia ) disco¬ 
vered in Madagascar by Mr. Thompson, of which the habit is entirely that of Deidamia, 
and whose stamina are equal in number to the divisions of both series of the perian- 
thium. 
But from Smeathmannia the transition is easy to Ryania, which differs chiefly in its 
still greater number of stamina, in the want of petals or inner series of perianthium, in 
the single style being only slightly divided, and in the form of its placentae. 
And Ryania, although it has a superior ovarium, may even be supposed to be related 
to Asteranthos and Be/visia, if the fruit of these two genera should prove to be unilo¬ 
cular with several parietal placentae. 
position 
