Mopecca is an Indian word forming a member of 
the appellations under which two or three congeners of our 
plant appear in the Hortus Malabaricus; and has been 
adopted as a generic title in the Encyclopédie Botanique of 
Lamarck, where the genus was first recorded. We are not 
aware why the group has been wholly passed over in all the 
general systematic enumerations of plants; nor why it has 
not found a place in the Hortus Kewensis, as the present 
species was introduced many years ago by the late Lady 
Amelia Hume, and has continued to be cultivated from that 
time in the hothouse at Wormleybury, from whence, through 
the kindness of Sir Abraham Hume, we were supplied with 
the specimen for the annexed drawing. 
The character at the head of the article is by Mr. Brown, | 
and comprises the six species already observed, viz. 3 in the 
Fast Indies, 1 in New Holland by Mr. Brown, and two in 
Sierra Leone, of which the present is one. ; 
Our sample belonged to the barren-flowered side of the 
species, which is dioicous; as that which afforded the figure 
to Jacquin, did, we have no doubt, to the fertile-flowered 
side. ~ 
(Barren PLANT.) Perennial: branches herbaceous, sar- 
mentose. Leaves membranous, oblongly or roundly cor- 
date, nearly entire or divided into 3-5- and sometimes 
partly into 7, lobes, opaque at the upper side shining at the 
under, 5-nerved; lobes pointed: petiole about 3 times shorter, 
with two glandular oblately ovate fleshy earlets at the top, 
each of which is hollow underneath, with a white glossy 
eye-like oozing gland in the centre of the cavity. Peduncles 
cirrhose, stiff, elastic, axillary bearing a corymb of several 
flowers at the upper part, beyond which they are spirally 
coiled and prehensile. Flowers fragrant: calyx yellowish 
green, urceolately campanulate, oblong, 5-cleft for about + 
of its length, segments of the limb ovately pointed recurved, 
3 outer ones with a finely fringed edge, two inner plain. | 
Corolla enclosed in the tube of the calyx, greenish, upright, 
5-petalled: petals narrow, spatulately lanceolate, with a 
short thick fleshy unguis, a lanceolately elongated attenuated 
blade with a fringed border. Vectary of five small green 
pits forming a circle at the bottom of the flower. 
