DR. SCHOMBURGK’S RESEARCHES IN GUIANA. 
24 9 
gum and its bark possessing valuable medicinal qualities. Scarlet Passion-flowers, 
others white as snow ; Combretum racemosum , with several species of Bignonia ? 
the most beautiful climbers of our European conservatories, hanging in natural 
festoons ; the crimson flowers of Bignonia cherere of Aublet, conspicuous even 
here, where all is bright and beautiful. 
On the 15th of October the party passed the Twasinkie Mountains, rising 1,100 
feet above the river, the range extending away to the Westward. The Saquiarie 
offset of the Twasinkie Mountains derives its Caribee name from a remarkable 
pile of large Granite boulders so placed as to resemble a water-jar. The boulders 
are about 150 feet below the highest peak of the hills, which are about 800 feet; 
they rise perpendicularly fo the height of 100 feet; forming a very remarkable 
feature. The coloured people who accompanied me, and had formerly ascended 
these hills, described those stones as enclosing a large cavity partly covered by a 
square mass of Granite. We here found a beautiful Orcbideous plant new to 
me. Its flower was an inch in diameter ; the petals of a rich purple, and a velvet¬ 
like appearance ; the helmet of the same colour; and the labellum striated with 
yellow. 
Oct. 16.—Halted on the Eastern side of a large island. The first plant I saw 
on landing was a Mikania ( angulata ), and in its vicinity grew likewise the 
far-famed Mikania guaco. The bitter extract so|peculiar to the tribe of Eupa- 
torinece prevailed in a striking manner in the Guaco. I had an opportunity of 
comparing the two species of Mikania * both of which are medicinal; the young 
leaves possess the bitter much more than the old ones. The natives call it u erra- 
warrant and use a decoction of it in syphilis ; but its property as an antidote 
to the bite of poisonous Snakes is not known here. Our resting-place was 
selected in the vicinity of thousands of Palm-trees; but, inviting as it was at a 
distance, we found it by no means comfortable, the ground being over-grown by 
* In the first part of a paper (“ An Enumeration of the Plants collected by Dr. Schomburgk in 
British Guiana,” by George Bentham, Esq., F.L.S.) published in the October Number of the 
Annals of Natural History, a new species of Mikania is described with the following characters :— 
Mikania racemulosa, sp. n., fruticosa , scandens, ramis teretibus petiolesque piibe fnsca scabridis 
foliis petiolatis late ovatis acuminatis integerrimis , basi obtusis, supra scabris, subtus subvelutino- 
pubescentibus irregulariter penninervics , ramorum Jloralium parvis triplinerviis , panicula com- 
posit a, racemis oppositis elongatis terminali longiore, pedicellis bracteola duplo longioribus capitulo 
subcequilongis , involucri squarnis oblongo-linearibus apice fimbriatis , achosnio glanduloso. Brit. 
Guiana—Leaves four to five inches long, about three broad. Pedicels numerous, divaricate, 
about two lines long. Flowers whole. This species, very well marked by the flower-heads being 
all pedicellate along the axis, is probably allied in this respect to M. Houstonii, which however 
is described as entirely glabrous. 
In the same paper the following other species are mentioned as being discovered by Dr. 
Schomburgk in British Guiana, viz., M. Hookeriana , M. denticulata , M. convolvulacea , and M. 
Parkeriana .—H. B. 
