A beautiful stove perennial plant, flowering every month in 
- thé year in the utmost profusion. It rivals in this respect the 
Gloxinia speciosa, while it surpasses it in the elegance of its 
figure, and the delicacy of its colouring. It is easily cultivated 
in light peat and loam, with a little sand; and is increased by 
seeds, which are produced in great quantities from the singularly 
twisted pods. 
Our drawing was made in June 1827, in the Hothouse of the 
Comte de Vandes, at Bayswater. 
From Didymocarpus this genus differs in having a 5-leaved, 
not 5-lobed, calyx; a stigma consisting of two reniform, unequal 
lips, not simple; and finally, a long, spirally twisted fruit, not a 
straight, comparatively short one. 
After a careful inspection of the ovarium and nearly ripe fruit 
of this plant, we are persuaded that the genera to which it is allied 
have no sufficient peculiarities to distinguish them from Bigno- 
niacee. The characters which have been relied upon by Mr. Don 
as distinctive of his Didymocarpew, are a supposed 4-celled fruit, 
a simple stigma, and numerous minute round seeds, with a radi- 
cule longer than the cotyledons. But we have long since shewn 
that the fruit is certainly not more than bilocular, the two sup- 
posed additional cells being produced by the projection of the 
lamelle of the placente, as in Martynia and similar plants; this 
was stated from an examination of ripe fruit only: but it now 
appears from the ovarium of Streptocarpus, that, in that genus at 
least, the fruit is in fact only unilocular, there being no cohesion 
between the placentw during the period of flowering. In the struc- 
ture of their capsule, therefore, Didymocarpex do not differ from 
Bignoniaceew. In Streptocarpus the stigma is 2-lipped, the lips 
being unequal and reniform; the character of a simple stigma 
ascribed to Didymocarpee is therefore untenable. That derived 
from the proportion borne by the radicule to the cotyledons, is 
obviously insufficient by itself to distinguish Didymocarpee as an 
order; but it may be used advantageously as a sectional character. 
It should be observed, that the above remarks do not apply to 
Cyrtandra, and the plants related to it, with baccate fruit, which 
may perhaps be allowed to constitute a distinct order, of which we 
must wait for another opportunity of speaking. 
J. L. 
