Part 4
CROTALARIA caule tetragono, strigoso; petiolis brevibus, foliis oblongo-lanceolatis, acuminatis; stipulis caulem amplexantibus.
CROTALARIA with the stem 4-sided, with flat pressed hairs: short footstalks: leaves oblong-lanced, and pointed: stipules embracing the stem.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The keel. 2. The chives and pointal. 3. Seed-bud and pointal.
* * * * *
This new and very ornamental species is remarkable for having the under lip of the calyx often undivided, and every part of the plant up to the blossom covered with shining close-pressed hairs: nor are they entirely wanting on the blossom; on the lower part of the keel they are very conspicuous, hanging downwards like a little beard. A groove with a fringe on each side runs also along the upper side of the style towards the summit. Two thread-shaped silky stipules rise at the base of every leaf-stalk, and, being reflected backwards, closely embrace the stem. A solitary stipule also rises at the base of each flower-stalk, and two where it unites with the calyx: but these, from their singular situation, must perhaps be considered as bracteæ.
We were favoured with the specimens in November from Lord Valentia’s gardens at Arley, along with the Plectranthus barbata. His Lordship received the seeds last year from Dr. Roxburgh in India, by the name of Crotalaria tetragona. The plant appears to be shrubby. No account of the species has before been published. Its place in the genus is near to the Crotalaria juncea figured in our sixth volume.
[Illustration]
PLATE DXCIV.
PLECTRANTHUS BARBATUS.
_Bearded Plectranthus._
CLASS XIV. ORDER I.
_DIDYNAMIA GYMNOSPERMIA._ Four unequal Stamens. Naked Seeds.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
CALYX laciniâ summâ majore. Corolla resupinata, ringens; tubo sursùm gibbo vel calcarato.
CUP with the upper division largest. Blossom lying on its back, gaping; tube with a spur above or swelled out.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
PLECTRANTHUS racemis bracteatis, bracteis deciduis; foliis ovatis, crenatis, pubescentibus, rugosis, per petioles decurrentibus: corollæ labio superiore emarginato brevissimo; inferiore subovato, concavo, hirsuto.
PLECTRANTHUS with bracts to the bunches, bracts falling off: the leaves oval, scolloped, downy and wrinkled, running down the footstalks; the upper lip of the blossom short, and slightly notched; the lower nearly ovate, compressed and hairy.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The empalement. 2. A blossom with the segments cut off to expose the chives. 3. The seed-bud and pointal, summit magnified.
* * * * *
The stem of Plectranthus is four-sided with blunt corners, and woolly. The leaves are fleshy, minutely dotted on both sides, and border their footstalks down to the stem. The flower-stalks, the lower part of the cups, and under lip of the blossom, are set with stiff clear bristles. The tube of the blossom is without a spur, and swelled on the upper side. Every part of the plant has a powerful fragrance. The specimens were communicated in November by Mr. Giddings, gardener to Lord Valentia at Arley; with a letter stating, that he raised the plants from Abyssinian seeds sent home by his Lordship about four years ago, and that they grow at Arley to about two feet in height, and thrive with the common treatment of stove plants.
The first species known of this genus, Plectranthus punctatus, the Ocymum punctatum of Linnæus, was also brought from Abyssinia by the celebrated Bruce.
[Illustration]
PLATE DXCV.
PANAX FRUTICOSUM.
_Shrubby Panax._
CLASS XXIII. ORDER II.
_POLYGAMIA DIŒCIA._ Flowers Male, Female, and Hermaphrodite on different Plants.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
HERMAPHRODITUS. Umbella. Calyx 5-dentatus, superus. Corolla 5-petala. Stamina 5. Styli 2 vel 3, sæpe cohærentes. Bacca 2-vel 3-sperma, infera.
HERMAPHRODITE. An umbel. Cup 5-toothed, above. Blossom 5-petalled. Stamens 5. Shafts 2 or 3, sometimes cohering. Berry 2-or 3-seeded, below.
The male or female flowers we have never seen.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
PANAX foliis supradecompositis, dentato-ciliatis; caule fruticoso. _Willd. Sp. Pl._
PANAX with leaves more than doubly compound, ciliated with little teeth; the stem shrubby.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. Empalement, chives, and pointals. 2. The pointals. 3. The plant in miniature.
* * * * *
On examining the flowers of this curious and rare species of Panax, we were a little startled to find how widely they differed from the character of the genus; being trigynous, and the berry three-seeded. Professor Jacquin has also observed the same variation in the flowers of P. aculeatum (see his Icones, tab. 634); and fifty years ago Trew observed and delineated the same number of styles in Panax trifolium, one of the original species upon which the genus was established. Nor had this escaped the scrutinizing eye of that profound observer of nature Bernard Jussieu. From these authorities, therefore, in consonance with our own observations, we have enlarged the character of the genus to include the species. Panax fruticosum, as we learn from Rumphius’s Herbarium Amboinense, vol. iv. p. 78 and 79, rises to between five and six feet in height, with a stem as thick as a man’s arm, and grows naturally in the Island of Ternate, where it is also much cultivated by the natives for food, medicine, and œconomy; being planted to separate the areas of their gardens and mark the boundaries of their fields. The boiled leaves are eaten as greens, and a decoction both of the leaves and root is used successfully in nephritic diseases, for which they also sometimes prescribe the roots to be eaten raw. The fame of the plant as a powerful diuretic is also great in Amboyna; where, as well as in Ternate, it is commonly planted both for ornament and use. Labillardiere, the French botanist, who accompanied the expedition that sailed in quest of the unfortunate Lapeyrouse, informs us (in his account of the voyage) that when at Amboyna he found this plant encircling the tomb of the venerable Rumphius, its first described.
Nature he loved; with her he spent his hours: The grateful goddess wreathes his tomb with flowers!
The famous _Gin-seng_, to which the Chinese attribute such extraordinary virtues, and which, as Osbeck informs us, was commonly sold in their shops in 1751 (see his Travels, English edit. p. 222) for from 30 to 40 times its weight in silver, and which one of their Emperors, 40 years before that, sent 10,000 Tartars in quest of at once, is said by that author to be a species of Panax; but the plant is yet unknown in Europe. Panax fruticosum, we are informed, was introduced to this country about the year 1800, and requires to be kept in the hot-house. The specimen was communicated from Boyton by A. B. Lambert, esq.
[Illustration]
PLATE DXCVI.
LAURUS CINNAMOMUM.
_Cinnamon Tree._
CLASS IX. ORDER I. OR CLASS XXII. ORDER VII.
_ENNEANDRIA MONOGYNIA_, or _DIŒCIA POLYANDRIA_. Nine Stamens. One Style, or Male and Female Flowers on different Plants. Stamens more than Seven.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
CALYX nullus. Corolla 6-partita, glandulis tribus germen cingentibus. Filamenta interiora glandulifera. Drupa 1-sperma.
CUP none. Blossom 6-parted. Glands three, surrounding the germen. Inner filaments bearing glands. Berry dry, one-seeded.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
LAURUS foliis trinerviis ovato-oblongis, nervis versus apicem evanescentibus. _Willdenow, Sp. Pl. vol. 2. p. 477._
LEAVES three nerved, oval-oblong, nerves vanishing towards the point of the leaf.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A flower spread open, shown from the outer side. 2. The same shown from the inner side. 3. The pointal.
* * * * *
For the first tolerable figure of the Cinnamon tree we are indebted to Dr. Hermann, Professor of Botany at Leyden who had also the honour of introducing it to Europe, having brought living plants with him, on his return from Ceylon, which vegetated in the Leyden Academy’s garden, and in the gardens of Mynheers Benting and Beverning between two and three years, until a severe winter destroyed them. See his Catalogue of the Plants in the Leyden Garden (Horti Academici Lugduno-Batavi Catalogus), page 130, plates 665 and 666. This fact is the more curious, as Linnæus, describing the Cinnamon from dried specimens in his noble patron Clifford’s collection, fifty years after, speaks of it as a plant forbidden to our shores; which Europe had never seen alive, and could hardly hope to see, or to retain even if it could be procured.
The Cinnamon was first cultivated in England by Mr. Miller in the Apothecaries’ garden at Chelsea about the year 1768; who probably received it from Holland, the Spice plantations at that time being entirely in the hands of the Dutch. No figure of it has before been published in this country, nor any account of its flowering. It grows naturally in the Island of Ceylon, from whence the vast quantity annually imported into Europe is supplied. The following method of procuring and preparing the bark is abridged from Thunberg’s Travels. Proper trees being selected, that is, those that are neither too young nor too old, the branches of three years growth are cut off with a pruning-knife, and their green outer bark scraped off with a crooked knife. The remaining bark is then ripped up lengthwise and peeled off and the smaller pieces being drawn into the larger, they are laid in the sun to dry. After being sufficiently dried, they are tied up in bundles of about 30 pounds weight each, and brought to the Company’s storehouses, where inspectors appointed for that purpose examine every bundle by tasting of it; and on its being approved of, it is tied in bundles of about 85 pounds weight each, which are then sewed into double woollen sacks, over which black pepper is strewed to attract any remaining moisture, and in this state shipped for Europe. From the dust and fragments remaining in the warehouses the extremely valuable and rare oil of Cinnamon is distilled. An oil is also distilled from the leaves, another from the fruit, and a fourth from the bark of the root.
Cinnamon is also found wild in the woods of Martinico, according to Professor Jacquin; but the Ceylon Cinnamon is always considered the best.
We are informed by our friend Mr. Anderson, that a Cinnamon tree in the garden of the Bishop of Winchester at Farnham Castle (perhaps the finest in England) has for many years blossomed and ripened its fruit annually, and that great numbers of young trees have been raised from the fruit, which have far surpassed for healthiness and hardiness the plants commonly obtained from layers, or those imported; and which leads us to hope that the Cinnamon trees may soon become more common and less difficult of cultivation: and his lordship’s great success with it will, we hope, serve to stimulate others. We have also seen a drawing in Mr. Lambert’s collection, taken in the Bishop of Durham’s garden at Mongewell, where it flowered, as we are informed by his lordship, in February 1796.
The Cinnamon tree requires to be kept in the bark-bed in the stove, and is propagated by cuttings and layers.
Our drawing was made in the month of February at J. Knight’s nursery, King’s Road, from a fine plant upwards of three feet high.
[Illustration]
PLATE DCXVII.
TROPÆOLUM PEREGRINUM.
_The Little Bird Plant._
CLASS VIII. ORDER I.
_OCTANDRIA MONOGYNIA._ Eight Stamens. One Style.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
CALYX monophyllus, calcaratus, quinquefidus. Petala duo ad quinque. Stigma trifidum, seu stigmata tria. Drupæ tres, siccæ, et monospermæ.
CUP of one leaf with a spur five-cleft. Petals two to five. Summits three, or summit three-cleft. Berries three, dry, and one-seeded.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
TROPÆOLUM petalis serrato-incisis, duobus maximis, tribus minimis. _Jacq. Hort. Schœnb. 1. p. 51. tab. 98._
TROPÆOLUM with the petals tooth-gashed, two much larger than the rest; three very small.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. Chives and pointal. 2. Seed-bud and pointal, summit magnified.
* * * * *
The Tropæolum peregrinum grows naturally in Peru, and was gathered wild by the French naturalist Feuillée near the town of Lima. The native name, according to that author, is Malla; the Spaniards call it Paxarito, which signifies a little bird; from the resemblance the expanded blossoms have to little humming-birds flying. Attaching itself by the long footstalks of the leaves to the branches, the plant often ascends to the very summits of trees in its native soil; and Professor Jacquin, director of the Emperor of Germany’s gardens at Schœnbrunn, informs us (in the work above quoted) that it grew there in the open ground to twenty-six feet in length, with a stem of a finger’s thickness, and a great many branches, but produced no flowers until transplanted into the green-house. A. B. Lambert, esq. who communicated the specimen from his gardens at Boyton last November, informs us that he cultivated it in a three-light melon-frame, which it completely filled, branching in all directions, and producing almost innumerable blossoms. The seeds but rarely ripen in this country, and are generally imported from Spain or Portugal. The plant, however, may be propagated by cuttings. Besides the five species of Tropæolum enumerated in the edition of the Species Plantarum by Willdenow, and the new species in our last volume (T. pennatum), three more species are described and figured in the Flora Peruviana of Ruiz and Pavon; some of which, and others of the many beautiful flowers of that country, the great intercourse now carried on with South America gives us to hope that we may soon see. One of the species in the Flora Peruviana having only two petals, has obliged us to make a little alteration in the generic character.
[Illustration]
PLATE DXCVIII.
BÆCKIA VIRGATA.
_Twiggy Bæckia._
CLASS VIII. ORDER I.
_OCTANDRIA MONOGYNIA._ Eight Chives. One Pointal.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
CALYX 5-dentatus. Corolla 5-petala. Capsula 3-seu 4-locularis, polysperma, calyce tecta.
CUP 5-toothed. Blossom of 5 petals. Fruit 3-or 4-celled, many-seeded, covered by the cup.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
BÆCKIA foliis lineari-lanceolatis pellucido-punctatis, pedunculis axillaribus umbelliferis.
Leptospermum virgatum. _Forster._
BÆCKIA with linear-lanced leaves with transparent dots; the flowerstalks axillary, and bearing umbels.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A petal. 2. The chives and pointal. 3. The same shown from the under side.
* * * * *
In the Island of New Caledonia, celebrated by Captain Cook (above all others) for the courteous, friendly, and honest disposition of the men, and the inflexible virtue of the females, (see his Second Voyage, vol. ii. p. 105 to 127.) and whence every day brought them something new in natural history, this plant with many others was discovered by the two Forsters, who accompanied him as naturalists, and is published in their Genera of Plants gathered in the Islands of the South Seas as a species of Leptospermum. Dr. Smith, however, justly observes, that neither the number of stamens, the fruit, nor the opposite leaves, agree at all with that genus, but most naturally with the Linnean genus Bæckia, of which several species have lately been found in New Holland. The stamens vary from eight to ten; the germen three-celled, with about sixteen seeds in each; but how many of these ripen we have had no opportunity of observing. The leaves are not absolutely without nerves, as described by Forster; we find them faintly three-nerved in his own specimen, but they are more conspicuously so after they become dry, particularly on the under side. In the specimens with which we have been favoured by Mr. Milne from Fonthill, the leaves are a little smaller than those upon the original specimen, which may be occasioned by this plant’s being yet so young, being raised only three years ago in the collection of the Marquis of Bath. The time of flowering is October. The Leptospermum virgatum of Willdenow we cannot quote, his descriptions being from two plants of very different genera jumbled together into one species.
* * * * *
In the 277th Number of The Botanical Magazine the writer, endeavouring to destroy the authority of the figure of Yucca gloriosa in The Botanist’s Repository, vol. vii., and establish that of his own as the first, says that our figure cannot belong to that plant, in which “the trunk reaches only from six inches to two feet (Miller says in his Dictionary, from two feet and a half to three feet!) in height, and where the leaves are quite entire; but to Y. aloifolia, whose trunk reaches from 6 to 10 feet in height, and the leaves have a finely crenulate edging.” Our drawing was taken at Lord Boston’s from a plant only ten feet high, the stem little more than three, and the leaves not in the least crenated! The panicle in our figure is also said to be much closer than in that, with its branches likewise more lax and drooping. With all these contradictory qualities, however, it very much resembles Barreliere’s figure of the same, which the writer himself has quoted, and in which the curvature of the buds, which he holds to be so extraordinary, is also conspicuous. No less curious is his objection to the tinge of purple on the flowers. Could it be possible that he had not seen either the plant that he way describing or the drawing of it? (See the figure in The Botanical Magazine.) But we leave the Yuccas to speak for themselves. The filamentosa he has also complimented with five feet of a stem (Botanical Magazine, No. 900), and quoted Micham’s authority for it, although that author expressly says that it is stemless!
[Illustration]
PLATE DXCIX.
CHAMÆROPS HUMILIS.
_Dwarf Fan-Palm._
CLASS XXIII. ORDER II.
_POLYGAMIA DIŒCIA._ Stamens and Pointals on different Plants, with some perfect Flowers occasionally.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
MASC. Calyx 3-partitus. Corolla 3-petala. Stamina 6.
HERMAPH. Calyx, corolla et stamina ut in masculis. Styli 3. Drupæ 3, monospermæ.
MALES. Cup 3-parted. Blossom 3-petalled. Stamens 6.
HERMAPHRODITES. Cup, blossom and stamens as in the males. Styles 3. Berries 3, dry, one-seeded.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
CHAMÆROPS frondibus palmatis, stipitibus spinosis, spathâ simplici. _Willd. Sp. Pl. 4. p. 1154._
CHAMÆROPS with palmate boughs, prickly footstalks, and simple sheaths.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. Empalement and blossom. 2. The same shown from the outer side. 3. The chives.
* * * * *
The Dwarf Fan-Palm is the only species indigenous to Europe, where it grows naturally in Italy on the coast of Etruria, in the Island of Sicily, and in Spain in the province of Valencia, where we are informed by Cavanilles, in his Icones Plantarum, (vol. ii. p. 12.) it is most commonly found stemless, and in that tract called Desierto de las Palmas, or the Desert of Palms, with stems rarely exceeding two feet in height. In the district of Xabea, however, on the coast of the Mediterranean, he found many with stems fourteen feet high, and one as high as thirty feet. The same author informs us that the lower part of the stem, which enters the earth, and the heads of young blossoms before they burst from the sheath, are eaten by the Spaniards, to whom also the leaves are of the greatest utility, furnishing them with mats, ropes, brooms, and baskets, in the manufacture of which boys are principally employed, and women during the evenings in winter. Many of our fair countrywomen, we fear, spend their evenings less usefully. Professor Pontedera, in his Anthologia, published at Padua in 1720, has given three good plates of the Chamærops and its fructification, taken from a plant, the stem of which was twelve feet high, growing in the public garden there. From this author we learn that the young shoots or suckers from the bottom of the plant (called there cefaglioni) are eaten by the Italians. The Chamærops also grows spontaneously upon uncultivated hills on the coast of Barbary, where the lower part of the young stems and the roots are also eaten by the Moors; and the leaves, after being macerated in water, made into mats, ropes, baskets, &c., as in Spain. (See Desfontaines’ Flora Atlantica, vol. iii. p. 473.) Willdenow takes notice of two varieties of the Chamærops, one of which is nearly stemless, and the other twenty feet in height; and the former of which is probably that cultivated in England, as we have never met with any of a large size, although the plant has been in our gardens since the year 1731; while that in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, (nearly twenty feet high,) mentioned by Chevalier Lamarck in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, seems to be the second variety. Our drawing was taken early in March, in Malcolm’s Nursery at Kensington, from a male plant about two feet in height with three fine bunches of male blossoms.
[Illustration]
PLATE DC.
GÆRTNERA RACEMOSA.
_Racemed Gærtnera._
CLASS X. ORDER I.
_DECANDRIA MONO-DI-TRIGYNIA._ Ten Chives. One to Three Pointals.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
CALYX 5-partitus. Petala 5 lacero-ciliata, inæqualia. Stamina decem, unicum reliquis longius. Stylus incurvus. Stigma simplex. Germen triloculare, 3-spermum. Samara inæqualiter quadrialata, monosperma.
CUP five-parted. Petals five, cut-fringed, unequal. Stamens ten, one longer than the rest. Style incurved. Summit simple. Seed-bud of three cells with three seeds. Fruit with four unequal wings, one-seeded.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The empalement. 2. The same shown from the outer side. 3. The chives and pointals. 4. The seed-bud and pointals. 5. The capsule.
* * * * *
This curious and interesting plant, originally considered as a species of Banisteria by Linnæus, was very properly separated and named in honour of the celebrated Gærtner by Schreber in his Genera Plantarum; and Cavanilles nearly about the same time published it in his Ninth Dissertation, under the name of Molina, in honour of the author of the Natural History of Chili. Gærtnera however has the right of priority, and has been continued by Dr. Roxburgh in his Plants of the Coast of Coromandel, where he has given a figure and description of the plant, (vol. i. p. 19. tab. 18.) and by Willdenow in his edition of the Species Plantarum.
On examining the fructification, we have found the plant more closely allied to Banisteria than has hitherto been suspected, the styles being commonly two with a rudiment of a third, and the germen three-locular with a young seed in each cell; but the inequality of the petals and stamens, the solitary gland on the calyx, and the abortion of the lateral seeds, furnish abundant distinctions.
From the Coromandel plants above quoted we learn that it is a large climbing shrub, growing naturally on the Circar mountains in India, and is commonly cultivated all over that coast on account of the beauty and fragrance of its flowers, which open there during the rainy season. According to Linnæus it is also a native of the Island of Ceylon. No other species of the genus has yet been described. The plant is certainly a great acquisition to our collections, and was introduced from India by the late Lady Amelia Hume about the year 1805. Our specimen was communicated from the collection at Wormley Bury the end of last March.
[Illustration]
PLATE DCI.
CROTALARIA PULCHRA.
_Fair Crotalaria._
CLASS XVII. ORDER IV.
_DIADELPHIA DECANDRIA._ Two Brotherhoods. Ten Stamens.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
LEGUMEN pedicellatum, turgidum. Filamenta connata cum figurâ dorsali.
POD on a footstalk, swollen. Filaments united into a tube, which is cleft at the back.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
CROTALARIA caule hirsuto; foliis simplicibus, elliptico-obovatis, integerrimis, sericeis, nitentibus; leguminibus calyce tectis bracteisque strigoso-sericeis.
CROTALARIA with a hairy stem; simple, elliptical, inversely oval, entire, silky, shining leaves: the pods, the calyx which covers them, and the bracts, all shining with silky hairs.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The empalement. 2. The standard. 3. One of the wings. 4. The keel. 5. Chives and pointal. 6. The seed-bud and pointal.
* * * * *