tivum produced behind into a thick, compressed, fleshy,
white crest. Ovarium bilocular, slightly compressed, seated
upon a large, fleshy, depressed, white, nearly orbicular disk.
Style filiform, attenuated upwards, glabrous, white, hooked
at the apex. Stigma small, truncate, undivided, minutely
papillose.
It is with no little satisfaction that we present to our readers
a figure of the original species of this highly ornamental
genus. The plant was first introduced in 1835, having been
raised from Mexican seeds by Mr. Henry Shepherd, the very
intelligent curator of the Liverpool Botanic Garden, where
we observed the young plants in the autumn of that year.
In habit it comes nearer to L . atrosanguineum, and in the
form of its flowers it is exactly intermediate between that
species and erubescens.
We have nothing to correct in the description given in the
fifteenth volume of the Linnean Transactions, except that
the corolla is of a dull purple, instead of violet, and th a t
there is present in all the flowers the rudiment of a fifth
stamen. The leaves are more crowded, and the flowers more
abundant than in L . erubescens. The plant requires the
same treatment, and is equally hardy, and as easily multiplied
as the other two species already recorded in this work.
Our drawing was taken from a plant which flowered in
the collection of Messrs. Osborn and Son at Fulham, in
June last.
For the explanation of the generic name, see fol. 68.
D . Don.
1. Portion of the tube of tbe corolla laid open, showing tbe insertion of the
stamens, with tbe rudiment of the fifth. 2. Pistil.
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