Volume 4 — PLATE CCXLV. IXIA PUSILLA. Dwarf blue Ixia.

CLASS III. ORDER I.

TRIANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Three Chives. One Pointal.

ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.

Corolla 6 partita, patens, æqualis. Stigmata tria, erectiusculo-patula.

Blossom 6-divided, spreading, equal. Summits three, between upright and spreading.

See Ixia reflexa, Pl. XIV. Vol. I.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Ixia foliis sublinearibus, costatis, crassis; scapo bifloro, longitudine, foliorum; floribus distantibus, cæruleis.

Ixia with nearly linear leaves, ribbed, thick; flower-stem two-flowered, the length of the leaves; flowers grow distant, and are blue.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.

1. The two valves of the sheath.

2. A Flower cut open, with the Chives in their place.

3. The Pointal, one of the summits detached and magnified.

This pretty little Ixia is quite new to our gardens, never having, as far as we can learn, been seen to flower before this year. It is the most delicate in shape and character of any we have as yet examined; and as we could not trace it as described in any author, we have given it the trivial name it here bears. The figure exhibits a large specimen of the whole plant, which is too weak to support itself, although the leaves are thick and stiff. Our drawing was made in the month of April, from a plant in the Clapham collection, where only it is to be found; the roots having been sent from the Cape of Good Hope in the autumn of the preceding year. It appears to flourish with the treatment Mr. Allen has given it, a dry situation, planted in very sandy peat. From the construction of the root, which has a hard smooth skin, we should be led to think its increase will not be very abundant.