Volume 1 — PLATE XXIII. IXIA CAPITATA. Var. ovata. Bunch-flowering Ixia. Var. Egg-shaped purple Petals.

CLASS III. ORDER I.

TRIANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Three Chives. One Pointal.

ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.

Corolla 6 petala, patens, æqualis. Stigmata 3, erectiusculo-patula.

Blossom six petals, spreading equal. Summits three, nearly upright, spreading.

See Ixia reflexa, Plate XIV.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Ixia, foliis radicalibus, ensiformibus; floribus capitatis, consertis, purpureis, petalis basi obscuris.

Ixia with leaves growing from the root, and sword-shaped; blossoms in close bunches, purple, and dark at the base.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.

1. The two sheaths of the Empalement. 2. A flower cut open, to shew the insertion of Chives. 3. The Chives as attached to the tubular part of the blossom, the border cut off (magnified). 4. The Shaft, Summits, and Seed-bud (magnified).

This fine species of Ixia, a native of the Cape of Good Hope, was introduced to our collections about the year 1795, by Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, nurserymen; they having raised it from seeds received by them, from the Royal Gardens at Vienna; is certainly amongst the tenderest of its tribe: the root, being extremely subject to injury by wet, it should be dried as soon as it has done flowering. It is one of the earliest Ixias in bloom, being in high perfection about the middle of April; is increased but slowly by the root, thriving best in very sandy peat, or sand only. The figure here given was drawn from a plant which flowered at the nursery, Hammersmith, in 1798, for the first time.

PLATE 23