hooked prickles. Leaves with long slender petioles,
ternate; leaflets petiolate, oblong, acuminate or tapering
to a slender point, entire, smooth, the ribs sometimes
prickly, and sometimes destitute of prickles. P e tioles
nearly cylindrical, or slightly flattened on the upper
side, with 1 hooked prickle just below the leaflets,
much swollen, or gibbous at the base; pa rtial f o o tstalks
short, furrowed on the upper side, terminal one
producing 2 glands at the base, lateral ones producing
1 each. Flowers terminating the branches in a long
raceme, generally in threes ; lower part of the raceme
leafy, the upper part without leaves. Peduncles cylindrical,
of a glossy purple. campanulate, 1-toothed,
smooth and glossy, of a brown colour, the margin
membranaceous. Corolla of a rich but dull crimson:
vexillum very broad, roundly oval, obtuse, at first folded
inwards, afterwards flat and reflexed, streaked with
numerous darker lines : wings very short and greenish,
oblong, bluntish, with an obsolete lobe on each side, a
little above the base : keel nearly as long as the vexillum,
also striped, and folded in so as to enclose the filaments,
the anthers protruded. Stamens 10, all connected,
the upper one separate about half its length, the
others connected nearly to the point. Germen downy,
terminated by a purple ascending Style, and small
slightly capitate Stigma.
When we published the present plant, we mentioned it as our
opinion that two species were confused under E. crista yalli,
which proves to be correct, as we saw them both in flower
last Autumn, and we intend shortly to publish the other species,
the one figured in Smith’s Exotic Botany, t. 95.
This very grand species had always been considered as a hothouse
plant, until Mr. Milne, of the Fulham Nursery, had the
curiosity to try one out in tbe open ground; he accordingly
planted one deep in the earth in a warm border, by the side of
a wall in his garden, in the Summer of 1823, where it has remained
ever since without the least protection, and has now established
itself well in the ground, the shoots dying down annually,
like a herbaceous plant, and the next Summer producing
fresh ones, which are stronger every season, and each produce
a long compact raceme of flowers; at the time our drawing was
made, the latter end of September last, there were three bunches
of flowers, such as the one in our figure; the flowers are produced
much closer together, and the colour is darker and richer
than on plants that are grown within doors, in which the racemes
are lengthened out, by being drawn up under glass; it will
certainly be one of the greatest ornaments for a warm border of
the flower garden, and will succeed in any rich light soil ; young
cuttings, planted in Spring, in pots of sand, and plunged under
a close hand-glass, strike root readily ; but they must be potted
off as soon as rooted, or they will be apt to damp ; wjien first
potted off, they must be still kept close under a hand-glass or
frame, until they have made fresh root in the mould, when they
must be hardened to the air by degrees ; the best time for turning
the plants in the open ground, is about the middle of May,
or from that time till the middle of June, as the plants will then
get established before Winter.
We have some doubts whether there are not two species confused
under E. crista yalli, as it is described by most authors as
arborescent, whereas our plant has always an inclination to die
back after flowering, even when grown in the hothouse, which
is not the case with any other species with which we are acquainted,
except E. herhacea, a species which may be grown
in the borders in the same manner as recommended for the present
species, and which is also very handsome.
This plant belongs to the Natural Order L e g u m i n o s æ , an
order which has lately been the subject of particular attention
by M. Decandolle, in the second volume of his excellent Prodromus,
and also in the Mémoires sur la famille des Légumineuses,
where several new Genera are delineated, and young
plants of numerous others, to show their different modes of germination,
a plan which we have no doubt will in time be pretty
generally adopted for fixing characters, particularly in difficult
orders. Mr. Lindley hath noticed M. Decandolle’s work in the
last number of the Botanical Register, but he seems not to have
noticed that the plant he was describing was already described
there, and had been published long since in the Botanical Magazine,
V.4 7 , p .2 1 6 9 , under the name of Kennedia ovata, by which
name it is now generally known in the London Nurseries.
L e g u m i n o s æ is divided by M . Decandolle into 4 Suborders, PAPILIONACEÆ, SWÂRTZIEÆ, MIMOSEÆ, and CÆSALPINEÆ.
P a p i l i o n a c e æ contains the following tribes, Sophorea, Loteoe,
Hedysareee, Vicieoe, Phaseolea, and Dalbergieoe. S w a e t z i e æ
and M im o s e æ each contains but one tribe; and C æ s a u p i n e æ
three, Geoffrea, Cassiea, and Detariea; the whole of which
contains 2 8 2 genera, besides many doubtful species, some of
which will hereafter form other genera, when their fructification
has been properly examined.