Tisticonta belongs to the small tropical order of Musa, 
and differs from the genus Musa, which includes the Plan- 
tain and Banana Trees, in having all the flowers fertile, and 
no mixture of barren ones as there. StTRELITzIA, the mag- 
nificent group of which all the known species have beer 
recently illustrated with unprecedented skill and splendour 
in the “ STRELITZIA DEPICTA” of Mr. Francis Bauer, 
is another co-ordinate genus. 
The present species is found wild in moist shady spots 
‘on the west-indian mountains; and was introduced by 
Mr. A. Anderson in 1786. The drawing was taken at 
the nursery of Messrs. Loddiges’ at Hackney, where it is 
cultivated in a hothouse, which is both warmed and irri- 
‘gated by means of steam. usages 
A large herbaceous plant, 10 feet high. Leaves radical, 
long-petioled, oblong, narrowed at each end, entire, marked 
with parallel nerves, upright, standing together, quite 
smooth: petioles as long or longer than the blade, round, 
thick, channelled at the upper side. Scape upright, the 
height of the petioles, round, thick, smooth. Spadix 
simple, upright. General spathes several (8-10), alternate, 
rigid, cordate, clasping, uprightly spreading, acuminate, 
distich, yellow-brown. Flowers subsessile, of a pale or 
greenish yellow, fascicled, embosomed in the separate 
spathes, and parted by whitish membranous partial spathes 
of the same length as themselves. Corolla three-petaled; 
cohering at the base, unequal, bent in opposite directions, 
and as if bilabiate: 2 upper petals lanceolate, pointed, a 
little reflex at the tip, converging below the middle, and. 
towards the base united with the lower petal: lower petal 
hardly longer than the upper ones, lanceolate, concave, 
clasping the hinder part of the nectary by the base, tip 
slightly recurvate, entire long-pointed. Mectary of two 
pieces: the hinder piece of the length of the corolla, broadly 
lanceolate, concave, ventricose underneath below the middle, 
three-cleft at the top, enclosing the filaments by the mem- 
‘branous convergent inbent edges of the sides, nectariferous 
at. the bottom: front piece very minute, lanceolate, adnate 
to the front petal. Filaments nearly of the length of the 
corolla, united below the middle into tubes which open in 
“front, adhering to the hinder piece of the nectary, filiform: 
anthers \inear; pointed, bilocular, yellow, often twisted 
spirally. cit 
