Part 84

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

HEATH, with beardless tips, without the blossoms, which are hairy, curved, and of a dirty yellow; flowers terminate the branches, sitting close to the stem; leaves grow by fours, linear, and covered with long hairs.

DESCRIPTION.

STEM shrubby, upright, hairy at the top; branches scattered, upright; smaller branches numerous, and hairy.

LEAVES grow by fours, linear, hairy and blunt; with very short foot-stalks.

FLOWERS sit close upon the ends of the smaller branches, growing solitary, or by twos, or threes; the foot-stalks are very short, having three floral leaves pressed close to the cup.

EMPALEMENT. Cup four-leaved, the leaflets like the other leaves, and pressed to the blossom.

BLOSSOM tubularly club-shaped, curved, an inch long, of a dirty yellow colour and hairy; the segments of the mouth rolled back.

CHIVES. Eight hair-like threads, curved inwards at the points. Tips beardless, and without the blossom.

POINTAL. Seed-bud egg-shaped, and furrowed. Shaft thread-shaped and without the blossom. Summit four-cornered.

Native of the Cape of Good Hope.

Flowers from the month of August, till December.

REFERENCE.

1. A leaf, magnified.

2. The Empalement, and Blossom.

3. The Empalement, magnified.

4. The Chives and Pointal, a tip magnified.

5. The Summit, magnified.

ERICA spicata.

CHARACTER SPECIFICUS.

ERICA, antheris aristatis, inclusis; floribus pluribus, dense spicatis, subterminalibus; foliis subsenis.

DESCRIPTIO.

CAULIS fruticosus, pedalis, erectus, ramis pluribus, confertis, adscendentibus.

FOLIA subsena, linearia, mucronata, patentia, glaberrima, subtus sulcata, petiolis brevissimis, cauli adpressis.

FLORES plures, subterminales arcte stipati, in spicam duram; ima parte luteoli, summa virescens.

CALYX. Perianthium persistens, duplex; exterius polyphyllum, foliolis lanceolatis, inæqualibus; interius tetraphyllum, flavescens, foliolis aduncis, spathulatis, summa inflata, callosa, acuminata, connivente.

COROLLA teretiuscula, basi attenuata, ore obtuso, quadrifido, æquali, connivente.

STAMINA. Filamenta octo, capillaria, corollæ subæqualia, receptaculo inserta. Antheræ aristatæ, inclusæ.