Page:A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland.djvu/49

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
numbers without any regular order, and are linear, very narrow, tipped with a little sharp point, entire, smooth, without any projecting vein or nerve, most frequently ciliated with fine stiff hairs. Footstalks very short, pale and smooth, erect at night, by which the leaves become closely pressed to the branch, and imbricated one over the other, though in the day time, and especially in bright sunshine, they spread horizontally. The very remarkable stipulæ stand solitary just above the insertion of each footstalk, erect, and close-pressed to the branch, whose bark they by that means completely conceal; they are brown, of a chaffy texture, lanceolate, cloven and sometimes laciniated, furnished with two parallel nerves. The flowers are about twenty or more, in a round head, among spreading leaves, and the branch they at first terminate is at length sometimes protruded beyond them, by which they become verticillate; each stands on a short, round, smooth flowerstalk, with bracteæ like the leaves, but smaller, and likewise accompanied with stipulæ. Calyx slightly campanulate, red, divided half way down into five acute, spreading, ciliated teeth, of which the two uppermost are the shortest and broadest; between them and the next pair stand the two appendages which make a material part of the generic character, and which agree exactly in appearance with the proper teeth, except in being somewhat narrower, and inserted, one on each side, about half way down the entire part of the calyx, to which their lower end is closely applied, so that they make the calyx appear to