ERICA Echiflora, purpurea.
Reading edition
CHARACTER SPECIFICUS.
Erica, antheris muticis inclusis: floribus terminalibus, tubulosis et costatis: foliis linearis confertis: caule fruticoso.
DESCRIPTIO.
Caulis fruticosus, sesquipedalis: ramis et ramulis flexuosis.
Folia irregulariter verticillati, quina vel sena, linearia: undulata, patentia.
Flores in umbellis confertis, horizontales: corolla tubulosa, purpurea, brevis, inflata, costata: laciniis patentibus cordatis, pedunculi brevi.
Germen tiaræforme, sulcatum: ad basin nectariis melliferis instructum.
Habitat ad Caput Bonæ Spei.
Floret a mense Autumnales.
REFERENTIA.
1. Folium auctum. 2. Calyx lente auctus. 3. Flos. 4. Stamen et pistillum, antherâ unâ lente auctâ. 5. Germen et pistillum, stigmate lente aucto. 6. Germen auctum. 7. Flos varietas.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Heath, with beardless tips within the blossom; flowers terminal, tubular, and ribbed; leaves linear and crowded: stem shrubby.
DESCRIPTION.
Stem shrubby, a foot and half high: the large and smaller branches flexuose.
Leaves grow in irregular whorls, of fives and sixes: waved and spreading.
Flowers grow in umbels, crowded and horizontal: blossom tubular, purple, short, inflated, and ribbed: segments of the border heart-shaped and spreading: footstalks short.
Seed-bud turban-shaped, furrowed, and furnished at the base with honey-bearing nectaries.
Native of the Cape of Good Hope.
Flowers during the Autumnal months.
REFERENCE.
1. A Leaf magnified. 2. The Empalement magnified. 3. A Flower. 4. The chives and pointal, one tip magnified. 5. Seed-bud and pointal, summit magnified. 6. Seed-bud magnified. 7. Flower of a variety.
This handsome shrub differs not only in the colour of its flowers from the E. Echiflora, figured in Vol. 3, but also in its foliage, which are much smaller, thinner, and closer together. It bears numerous bright purple blossoms, crowded together at the ends of the branches; there are two slight varieties, one of a paler colour, and the other longer in the flower and curved, a flower of which is given with the dissections. Our figure was made from plants in the Hammersmith Collection.
