Refugium Botanic. | ' [ August, 1868. 
TAB. 48. 
Natural Order COMMELYNACER. 
Genus TraprscantiA, Linn. 
T. piscotor Smith, Ic. Inedit. t.10. Wiild. Sp. Plant. vol. ii. p.18 ; Ker. 
in Bot. Mag. t. 1192, and Hook. Bot. Mag. 5079 (a variegated 
variety); Red. Lal. t. 168. 
Var. concolor. Foliis utrinque concoloribus. 
Leaves about a foot long, fifteen lines broad in the lower part, 
arising from a short thick erect stem, dilated and clasping it at 
the base, erect, firm, subrigid in texture, convex on the back in 
the lower part and concave on the face, narrowed gradually from 
above the middle to an acute point, prominently parallel-veined, 
the edge purple, both sides in this variety a uniform pale green. 
Flowers on short stout ascending axillary peduncles, in wmbels 
which scarcely emerge from the large two-valved spathes. Pedicels 
stout, pale green, naked. Sepals firmer and slightly shorter than 
the petals, ovate and not quite equal. Petals pure white tinged 
at the tip with pink, as broad as deep, broadly pointed, connected 
at the base; the expanded flower eight or nine lines broad. 
Stamens six, hypogynous, subequal; the filaments curiously 
bearded at the middle with moniliform hairs; the anthers narrow, 
pinkish, the broad connective yellow and obversely deltoid. 
Ovary white, small, sessile, roundish, naked, three-celled, with 
only a single ovule in each cell; the style slender, erect, twice as 
long as the ovary. Capsule purplish, fleshy, obliquely obovate, 
three- or by abortion two-celled, the dehiscence loculicidal. — 
J.G. B. 
I received this plant from Belize a few years since, sent with a 
collection of orchids. It grows and flowers freely in a damp 
stove, potted in a mixture of loam and peat.—W. W. S. 
