PATERSONIA lanata.
Woolly Patersonia.
Linneun Class and Order. MONADELPHIA TRIANDRIA.
Natural Order. IRIDE.ZE. Brown prodr.p. 302.
PATERSONIA. Perianthium petaloideum, hypocrateriforme, regulare, tubo gra-
cili; limbo sexpartito, laciniis interioribus minutis. Filamenta connata. Stylus capilla-
ris apice saepissime tuniido. Stigmata 3, lamiuaeformia, indivisa. Capsula prismatica.
Semina nnmerosa.—Plantae perennes. Radix fibrosa. Caulis nullus v. simplex, brevis,
quandoque ramosus. Folia angusto-ensiformia, compacta. Scapus radicalis caulemve termi-
nans simplex ebracteatus. Spatha communis bivalvis, includens partiales nonnullas, confer-
tas, unifloras. Flores sensim erumpentes, speciosi, ccerulei, immmaculati,fugacissimi. An-
therae stigmataque flava. Styli apex tumidus, plerumque medio constrictus. Stigma deflex-
um. Capsula; spathis tecta. Semina sapiUs angulo interno loculi, nunc columna centrali
affixa.
P. lanata, stylo exsevto, stigmate deflexo, scapo folia subæquante tereti striato longi-
tudinaliter spathisque lanatis, foliis ensiformibus plano-convexiuseulis tenuissimè
striatis striis oequalibus : marginibus carinâque baseos lanatis, perianthii laciniis
basi imbricatis.
Patersonia lanata. Brown prodr.p. 303. Roem. et Schult, syst. 1. p. 404. Spreng, syst,
veg. 1. p. 168.
A tufted herbaceous perennial plant; our plant was about 8
inches in height, purple near the base. Leaves regularly distichous,
narrowly ensiform, acute, sheathing at the base, longitudinally
striated with numerous equal lines, the margins, keel, and points,
thickly clothed with white wool, spreading on the young leaves, but
becoming close on the older ones, so as to give them a white margin.
Scape about the length of the leaves, slender at the base, and
thickening upwards, clothed the whole length with dense wool,
sheathed at thebase by one of the leaves. Spatha 2-valved, striate,
densely clothed with white wool, ferruginous at the margins, keeled,
acute, rigid and cartilaginous, several-flowered. Flowers of a blue
purple, 2 expanding at one time in our specimen, each surrounded
at the base by a hard submembranaceous bracte. Perianthium tu
bular, with a 6-partedlimb: tube bluntly triangular, pale coloured,