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148
Transactions.—Botany.

large as those of C. grandifolia, but they have more the shape and texture of those of C. robusta, and they dry a brownish-black as in that species. The average length of the fruit is about ¾ inch, but some specimens were observed over an inch. The flowering season was past at the time of our visit, but judging from the arrangement of the berries, the inflorescence must resemble that of C. grandifolia, with shorter peduncles and fewer flowers.


3. Paratrophis (Uromorus) smithii, n. sp.

A small tree, 10–15 feet high, with milky juice, perfectly glabrous in all its parts branches long, slender, straggling bark brown, rough, with raised lenticles. Leaves shortly petiolate, alternate, entire, 5–9 inches long, 2–4 inches broad, ovate-oblong, oblong-elliptical or almost ovate, obliquely cordate at the base, sub-coriaceous, obtuse or obtusely acuminate, veins conspicuous, penninerved. Stipules small, lanceolate, very deciduous. Spikes simple or bifid, axillary, 2–5 inches long, only females seen, and those with the flowers not quite fully developed. Flowers apparently arranged in two irregular rows on each side of the spike, numerous, minute, mixed with peltate scales. Perianth 4-partite to the base; leaflets broadly ovate, obtuse, imbricate. Ovary sessile, ovoid, exserted beyond the perianth. Style divided to the base into two linear stigniatic branches. Fruit a drupe, enclosed at the base in the slightly enlarged persistent perianth, globose, ⅓-inch long, bright red. Seed solitary, pendulous.

A singular species, which I have dedicated to my fellow-traveller, Mr. Percy Smith. Technically, it falls into the genus Paratrophis, as defined by the authors of the "Genera Plantarum," the type of which is the plant well known to New Zealand botanists under the name of Epicarpurus microphallus. P. smithii, however, belongs to a section of the genus called Uromoras, which was originally constituted as a distinct genus by Bureau, in his monograph of the order (De Candolle's "Prodromus," vol. xvii.). Three species of the section are known: one from the Fiji Islands, one from Tahiti, and the third from the Philippines. Ours is very distinct from all.


4. Davallia, sp.

Rhizome stout, wide-creeping, densely clothed with pale chestnut-brown subulate cobwebby scales. Stipes stiff, smooth, 3–6 inches long. Frond 4–12 inches long, 3–8 inches broad, deltoid or rhomboid, tri- or quadripinnatifid, very coriaceous, quite glabrous. Primary pinnæ ovate-deltoid, acuminate; secondary narrower; pinnules lanceolate, cut down nearly to the base into 3–5 pairs of segments. Sori numerous, narrow cup-shaped, sunk in the top of the teeth, usually with a projecting horn on the outer side.