Page:Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Volume 58 (1831).djvu/73

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yellow where included, either solitary, rhomboid, subacute, with the apex turned up, when they are placed between the flowers, or germinate, round, and placed above or below them. Calyx four-parted, covered with appressed pubes cence; claws linear, yellow, the spoon shaped segments of the limb reddish, nodding. Anthers elliptical, subsessile in the cavities of the calyx. Style twice as long as the calyx, shining, of a deep purple colour except at the base and apex, where it is yellow, deciduous, rigid, apex nodding. Stigma an abrupt, glandular, scarcely-swollen termination to the style, retained for a time within the calyx, as in the other species, and when liberated, covered with the yellow, granular pollen, which gives it a capitate form.

This species flowered in the greenhouse of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, in November, 1830, immediately after B. speciosa, figured at t. 3052 of this work, and continued also in blossom at the same time with it; the two species forming a good contrast in their colours and manner of flowering. The present seems quite different from B. microstachya of Cavanilles and B. attenuata of Brown, with both of which Sprengel unites his B. littoralis.

I have assigned the specific name to this plant doubtfully, and have quoted all the the authorities above cited, with hesi- tation; excepting the Botanical Register; because there seems some reason to question its identity with the plant sent from New Holland by Mr. Brown, and cultivated at Kew, under the specific appellation of B. littoralis. The specimen which flowered with us was received in 1828 from Mr. Mackay of Clapton, without a name; again in 1829, he kindly communicated a seedling, marked B. collina, whch has proved to be the same, differing only in being destitute of veins on the back of the leaf. I have a specimen from Mr. Fraser, of a plant that must rank very near this, and is chiefly distinguisable by its leaves being longer, narrower, and quite entire, except near the apex, where there are four small teeth, and by the branches being much less hairy. In colour and in the manner of flowering, it perfectly coincides. Graham.



{{text-indent|1em|Fig. 1. Two Flowers. 2. Stigma, with part of the Style.–Magnified.