Curtis's Botanical Magazine/Volume 19/738 Banksia Ericaefolia

[ 738 ]

Class and Order.

Generic Character.

Amenatum squamatum. Cor. 4-petala. Antheræ in cavitate laminarum sessiles. Caps. bivalvis. Sem. bipartibile. L. sup.

Specific Character and Synonyms.

BANKSIA ericæfolia ; soliis approximatis acerosis truncato- emarginatis glabris. Linn. Suppl. p. 127. Willd. Sp. Pl. 1. 536. Bot. Repos. 156. Cavan. Icon. vol. 6. t. 538.



The Banksia, a genus so named in honour of its first dis- coverer, the President of the Royal Society, in a voyage round the world with Captain Cook, is very nearly allied to Protea, and like that appears to contain a great number of species of very various forms and size. Our present plant forms a handsome shrub, thrives freely, and has flowered in several collections; our drawing was taken from that of Esq. at Vauxhall, in April 1802.

The beauty of the flower consists very much in the length of the style; which, from the stigma being long retained within the anthers, is fanciful bent into a loop: when the efflorescence is complete, the petals expand and let the stigma at liberty. The flower is considered by some as monopetalous, but the petals, in ericæfolia at least, adhere so lightly at the base only, that they can hardly be kept from separating when removed from the receptacle. The germen in this spe- cies is surrounded with brown hairs very like that of many of the Proteæ. We could not discover any other calyx than the squama of the Amentum, in no respect like that described by. A native of New-Holland. By no means tender and may be kept in a greenhouse with Proteas and other Cape shrubs. Propagated by seeds and by cuttings.