| Description | Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, v. 137 = ser. 4, v. 7, 1911 B. fulvovillosa as SYN Symbegonia fulvovillosa The interesting plant here figured is a member of the Begoniaceae, which family is now known to include five distinct genera. In two of these, Begonia itself and Hillebrandia, the segments of the perianth are distinct in both sexes; in one of them Begoniella, the segments of the perianth are united in both sexes. The remaining two genera have the perianth segments distinct in one sex and united in the other. In Semibegoniella it is the male flower which has the segments of the perianth united, while those of the female flower are free. But in Symbegonia, the genus to which our subject belongs, it is the female flower where the perianth segments are united and the male in which they are free. This genus is endemic in New Guinea, and includes four species, all of which have been discovered in Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. The plant which supplied the material for our figure was raised at Glasnevin from seed sent by Dr. R. Schlechter from New Guinea in 1908. Only one seed germinated and the resulting plant has been grown in an intermediate house with a minimum night temperature of 55° F. in a compost of fibrous loam, peat and leaf mold. It is of branching habit, under a foot in height. In winter most of the shoots die down to the crown. Propagation is readily done by cuttings. Description: Herb, erect, 5-8 in. high; stems tinged with red, crisply hairy, about as thick as a crow-quill above. Leaves lanceolate-oblong, acute, very unequal at the base and strongly auriculate on one side, 2 ½ -2¾ in. long, 1¼ in. wide, deeply double serrate, green, shining and finely punctulate above, finely and sparingly pubescent on the sunken nerves, but elsewhere glabrous, more or less tinged with red beneath and with prominent hispidulous nerves, the fine reticulations hardly visible and the mesophyll closely white punctate ; petiole about 2 lin. Long pubescent like the stem; stipules lanceolate, their midrib produced in a slender tip about 2 lin. long, membranous, pale green, including the tip about 2/3 in. long and about 2 lin. wide. Flowers 1-sexual, shortly pedicelled. Perianth segments in the male flower 2, free, valvate, ovate. Stamens. 12- 20; filaments united in a column for most of their length; anthers basifixed oblong-ovate, dehiscence lateral. Perianth segments of female flower connate in a pale yellow campanulate tube, hairy on the outside; lobes 5, ovate, serrulate, spreading. Ovary quite inferior, 3-winged, wings almost triangular, sharply acuminate; styles 3, connate below, deeply 2-fid, with a spiral stigmatic surface, placentas 2-lamellate, lamellae parallel, bearing ovules on both surfaces. |
