Volume 4 — PLATE CCLXXXV. FERRARIA VIRIDIFLORA. Green-flowered Ferraria.

CLASS XVI. ORDER I.

MONADELPHIA TRIANDRIA. Threads united. Three Chives.

ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.

Monogyna. Spathæ unifloræ.

Petala sex, undulato-crispata. Stigmata cucullata. Capsula 3-locularis, infera.

One Pointal. Sheaths one-flowered.

Petals six, waved and crisped. Summits cowled. Capsule three-celled beneath.

See Ferraria pavonia, Pl. CLXXVIII. Vol. III.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Ferraria foliis distichis, vaginantibus, costatis; petalis lanceolatis æqualibus, interioribus immaculatis, angustioribus, virescentibus.

Ferraria with leaves pointing opposite ways sheathing the stem and ribbed; petals lance-shaped, equal, the inner ones without spots, narrower and greenish.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.

1. The Seed-bud, Chives and Pointal.

2. One of the Chives, a little magnified, as seen from the inside.

3. The same seen from the outside.

4. The Seed-bud, Shaft and Summits, the Chives removed.

5. One of the Summits magnified.

Our figure represents the Moræa Ferrariola of Jacquin’s Collectanea 4. p. 141; but, as we conceive Ferraria a good, and distinct genus, we have not followed either him, or Thunberg, who has likewise thrown these plants to Moræa. At first sight we did not think this plant possessed of sufficient distinctive character to be treated as a different species from the F. undulata; but upon closer inspection found it to vary nearly in every part; in the shape of the flower, the leaves and the root. The singular character of this, and the other Cape Ferrarias, of making but one growth in two, and sometimes three years; is hardly to be traced in any other plants, but constantly so in these. They produce their flowers about July, the season of their flowering; the flowers are as transitory as those of the F. pavonia; that is to say, the duration of about six hours. Our figure was taken from a plant in the Hibbertian Collection, which flowered in the month of July 1802. The Ferrarias all propagate by the root; and should be planted in sandy peat mixed with a small portion of loam.