from the same joint, and flowering in succession, each
producing an umbel of twenty-four flowers. Involute
of numerous lanceolate bluntish bractes, tipped with
long hairs. Pedicles in the lower flowers scarcely any,
in the upper ones very long and thickly clothed with
long white hairs. Calyx 5-cleft, smooth, segments
widely lanceolate, obtuse, revolute. Petals 5, nearly
equal, roundly obovate, of a dark brown or nearly
black, edged with a greenish yellow. Filaments 10,
united at the base, 5 only bearing anthers; of these the
four lower ones are longest and subulate, the upper one
widened and spatulate, bent in at the point and reflexed
so as almost to hide the anther: the barren ones
are all shorter and bent at the points, the two upper
ones standing out from the others nearly as in Cam-
pylia. Pollen pale yellow. Germen villous. Style
green, haiiy on the lower part and smooth on the upper.
Stigmas 5, of a black colour, spreading.
Our drawing of this very distinct and curious species
was taken at the Nursery of Mr. Colvill, who
received several roots of it from the Cape, with many
other curious species. It differs so much from all the
others with which we are acquainted, that it might
with propriety be formed into a distinct genus, being
intermediate between our Section Monospatalla and the
genus Campylia. We suspect that P. sanguineum,
which at the time we published it we believed to be a
real species, will prove to be a mule between the present
plant and P.fulgidum; but this is mere surmise.
The leaves of the present species remind us of a
large Fern or of Choerophyllum temulum; the uncoloured
one in our plate is only a diminished outline.
It thrives well in a mixture of turfy loam, peat, and
sand, and propagates freely from the tubers of the
roots.