ERICA minutæflora.
Reading edition
CHARACTER SPECIFICUS.
Erica antheris muticis, subinclusis: stylo exerto: summitate magna, concava: floribus parvis, axillaribus: foliis quaternis: caule fruticoso.
DESCRIPTIO.
Caulis pedalis et ultra, erectus, flexuosus: ramulis verticillatis, adscendentibus, filiformibus.
Flores in summis ramulorum paniculati, plerumque bini, axillares; corolla campanulata, purpurea, minuta: calyce adpresso.
Folia quaterna, linearia, longa, obtusa, glauca, et patentia.
Germen tiaræforme, sulcatum, tomentosum, ad basin nectariis melliferis instructum.
Habitat ad Caput Bonæ Spei.
Floret per menses autumnales.
REFERENTIA.
1. Flores duo. 2. Calyx lente auctus. 3. Flos lente auctus. 4. Germen et Pistillum, stigmate lente aucto. 5. Germen lente auctum.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Heath with beardless tips just within the blossom: shaft without: summit large and hollow: flowers small, axillary: leaves by fours: stem shrubby.
DESCRIPTION.
Stem a foot or more high, upright, and flexuose: the smaller branches grow in whorls, ascending, and thread-shaped.
Flowers grow in loose spikes near the ends of the branches, mostly in twos, from the axillæ of the leaves: blossom bell-shaped, purple, and very small: empalement pressed to them.
Leaves by fours, linear, long, blunt-ended, glaucous, and spreading.
Seed-bud turban-shaped, furrowed, downy, and furnished at the base with honey-bearing nectaries.
Native of the Cape of Good Hope.
Flowers during the autumnal months.
REFERENCE.
1. Two flowers. 2. Empalement magnified. 3. A Flower magnified. 4. Seed-bud and Pointal, summit magnified. 5. The Seed-bud magnified.
This very small-flowered Erica was first raised at the Hammersmith Nursery, from Cape seed, in the summer of 1822, and was then called atro or viridi purpurea, neither of which are characteristic of the plant, which furnishes when in bloom a very minute but good specific character; and although not specious, it may be regarded as a curious and interesting species.
