ERICA splendens.
Reading edition
CHARACTER SPECIFICUS.
Erica, antheris aristatis, inclusis: stylo sub-exerto: floribus cylindraceis, tomentosis: foliis quaternis.
DESCRIPTIO.
Caulis fruticosus, erectus, pedalis et ultra: rami numerosi, tomentosi.
Folia quaterna, linearia, obtusa, tomentosa, adscendentia.
Flores plerumque quaterni, patentes, terminales: corollis uncialibus, ovato-cylindraceis, villosis, coccineis: oris laciniis erecto-patulis.
Germen tiaræforme, villosum, ad basin nectariis melliferis instructum.
Habitat ad Caput Bonæ Spei.
Floret a mense Maii ad Augustum.
REFERENTIA.
1. Calyx. 2. Anthera una lente aucta. 3. Germen et Pistillum, stigmate lente aucto. 4. Germen lente auctum.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Heath, with bearded tips, within the blossom: shaft just without: flowers cylindrical and downy: leaves by fours.
DESCRIPTION.
Stem shrubby, upright, a foot or more high: branches numerous and downy.
Leaves by fours, linear, blunt, downy, and ascending.
Flowers grow mostly by fours, spreading, and terminal: blossoms an inch long, ovately cylindrical, villose, of a scarlet colour: segments of the border upright and spreading.
Seed-bud turban-shaped, hairy, and furnished at the base with honey-bearing nectaries.
Native of the Cape of Good Hope.
Flowers from May till August.
REFERENCE.
1. The Empalement. 2. A Chive magnified. 3. Seed-bud and Pointal, summit magnified. 4. Seed-bud magnified.
We have adopted the specific title by which this Erica is well known in the gardens, although we should have preferred that of tomentosa, so decidedly descriptive of the downy character that pervades the whole plant, and which renders it difficult to preserve from the damps, which love to lodge on soft and downy pillows, too often to the destruction of their resting-place. Our figure represents an entire plant from the Nursery of Messrs. Colville, in the year 1816.
