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314 ON THE GIGANTIC NEW AROIDEA FROM NICARAGUA.
long, and 9 lines across, and bears heriua£lirodite flowers, the technical
description of which is given below.
The plant grows with great rapidity—several inches during a single
night,—and the flowers emit the odour peculiar to many Aroidese
and other dark-coloured flowers. The plant has nothing to do with
AniorphopJiallus and kindreds with which it agrees in habit ; it, how-
ever, is closely allied to Dracontimn, both in- habit and technical characters,
but chiefly difl^rs from that 'genus in having twice as many
stamens as perigonal segments. It therefore constitutes a new genus,
which I have great pleasure in dedicating to Mr. George Godwin,
F.E.S., F.B.H.S., etc., architect, author of ' Another Blow for Life,'
etc., one of the founders of the Art Union of London, and Editor of
the 'Builder,' a gentleman who has rendered much willing and substan-
tial aid to literature, science, and art, and who, by his active support
of window-gardening in the metropolis, has spread amongst even the
humbler classes that taste and love for plants without which, after all,
the race of botanists would soon become extinct.
Additional details will be found in the ' Journal of Botany,' Vol.
VII. p. 278, where also one of the specimens is described, which Mr.
W. Bull, of King's Road, Chelsea (to whom the plant was consigned),
exhibited at a meeting of the Eoyal Horticultural Society at Kensing-
ton. This specimen (leaf only) attained within a few inches the
dimensions I noted in Nicaragua, and had it not begun to sprout
during its passage to England, and suff'ered at tip from pushing against
the lid of the box in which it was planted, there can be no doubt that
even this year it would have quite equalled them. Mr. W. W. Saunders
having pointed out the interest attaching to the plant, the Royal Hor-
ticultural Society recorded its appreciation of it by awarding to this
novelty an honorary distinction.
GoDWiNiA, Seem. (gen. nov. Aroidearum). Spatha inferne convo-
luta, erecta, apicem versus fornicata, aperta, persistens. Spadix peri-
gonanthus, stipitatus, spathfE limbo multo superatus, cylindricus,
liber, erectus, densi- ac pluriflorus. Florlculi perigonio 6-sepalo, sepalis
apicem versus dilatatis, fornicatis, vertice convexulis, in prtefloratione
irregulariter imbricatis ; stamina 12, biseriata, ex teriora sepalis al-
terna,_interiora sepalis opposita, filamentis parum compressulis, apice
repentino in connectivum tenue acuminatum angustatis, pistiUo multo
brevioribus, anthera? loculis suboppositis, lineari-cllipticis, apiculo