Part 5

PISTILLUM. Germen inferum, curvatum, sulcatum, inferne attenuatum. Stylus crassus, adnatus labio superiori nectarii. Stigma obsoletum.

PERICARPIUM. Capsula unilocularis, carnosa, longissima, trivalvis.

SEMINA numerosa, minutissima.

EMPALEMENT. Sheath scattered. Fruit-stalk simple.

BLOSSOM. Petals five, of equal length, of a narrow spear-shape, and upright.

Honey-cup one leaf, undivided, sharp pointed, placed between the two inner petals, half embracing the base of the shaft, upright, spreading at the top.

CHIVES. Two threads, rising out of the back of the shaft, spear-shaped. Tips two, linear, long, placed in the cells of the threads.

POINTAL. Seed-bud beneath, curved, furrowed, tapering at the base. Shaft thick, growing to the upper lip of the honey-cup. Summit indistinct.

SEED-VESSEL. Capsule with one cell, fleshy, very long, three valves.

SEEDS numerous, very small.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Neottia, foliis radicalibus, undulatis, lato-lanceolatis, basi attenuatis; floribus confertis, spicatis, incarnatis, speciocissimis.

Neottia, with leaves growing from the root, waved, of a broad spear-shape, tapered at the base; flowers pressed together in a spike, flesh-coloured, and most beautiful.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.

1. A Blossom, Seed-bud, and Sheath, (natural size).

2. The Seed-bud, and three Petals of the Blossom; the two inner cut out, to shew the position of the Honey-cup, (natural size).

3. Seed-vessel, and Honey-cup magnified; shewing the situation, and shape of the Chives, within the Honey-cup.

4. The same magnified; shewing the situation of the Pointal, at the back of the Honey-cup.

Professor Jacquin of Vienna, having figured the Neottia in the third volume of his Collectanea, with justice has determined it a new genus, and given it the name it here bears; the whole habit of the plant being entirely dissimilar to any old genera. It certainly must be placed somewhere near Limodorum, or Epidendron, from either of which, however, it stands perfectly distinct. This is the only species yet in England, and was introduced from the island of Jamaica, about the year 1793, by the Hon. Mrs. Barrington. The drawing from which the present figure is taken, was made (by her kind permission) from a plant in the extensive collection of the Hon. Lady Archer, Ham-common. Like all plants from that island, it requires the heat of a pine-stove, and rich earth, to make it flourish; is increased by the root, and flowers in the early part of the year.

PLATE IV.

RHODODENDRON DAURICUM.

Dauric Rhododendron.

CLASS X. ORDER I.

DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Ten Chives. One Pointal.

GENERIC CHARACTER.

CALYX quinquepartitus, persistens.

COROLLA. Monopetala, rotato-infundibuliformis: limbo patente; laciniis rotundatis.

STAMINA. Filamenta decem, filiformia, longitudine corollæ, declinata. Antheræ ovales.