Volume 8 — PLATE CCCCXCV.

PROTEA CORYMBOSA.

Corymbose-flowering Protea.

CLASS IV. ORDER I.

TETRANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Four Chives. One Pointal.

ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.

Corolla 4-fida, seu 4-petala. Antheræ lineares, petalis infra apices insertæ. Calyx proprius, nullus. Semina solitaria.

Blossom 4-cleft, or of 4 petals: tips linear, inserted into the petals below the points. Cup proper, none. Seeds solitary.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Protea foliis teretibus, brevibus, obtusis, adscendentibus, glaucis: floribus capitatis, luteis, corymbosis.

Frutex pygmæus, dumosus: ramis sub-verticillatis.

Protea with round short leaves, blunt ended, ascending, and glaucous: flowers headed, yellow, and growing in the manner of a corymbus.

A dwarf shrub, bushy, with branches nearly whorled.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.

This plant has been long known in the gardens by the title of Protea purpurea, but never flowered in this country till last summer, at the nursery of Mr. Williams of Turnham Green; when, instead of purple flowers, (as was expected from its specific title,) they proved to be yellow. It bears so great a resemblance to the P. teretifolia, that when we figured that species (by comparing it with a dried native specimen,) we were almost inclined to think a small variety of that plant was the P. corymbosa altered in its manner of growth in this climate by a different mode of culture. But comparison with the living plants has now determined them to be distinct species, and left no doubt remaining of this being the P. corymbosa figured by Thunberg in his Dissertation on the genus Protea.