Curtis's Botanical Magazine/Volume 63/3535 Banksia occidentalis

[ 3535 ]

Class and Order.

(Nat. Ord. - )

Generic Character.

Perianthium quadripartitum (raro 4-fidum. Stamina apicibus concavis laciniarum immersa. Squamulæ hypo- gyna 4. Ovarium biloculare, loculis monospermis. Folli- culus ligneus: dissepimento libero, bifido. Amentum flos culorum paribus tribracteatis. Br.

Specific Name and Character. occidentalis; foliis linearibus extra medium spinu- loso-dentatis subtus aveniis, bracteis amenti apice gla- bris, perianthiis marcescentibus, unguibus basi intus barbatis, folliculis ventricosis tomentosis, apice com- pressiusculo nudo, caule fruticoso, ramulis glabris. occidentalis Brown, Linn. Soc. Trans. v. 10. p. 204. Ibid. Prodr. p. 392. Ibid. Hort. Ke. ed. 2. v. 1. p. 215. Roem. et Shult. Syst. Veget. v. 3. p. 438. Sprengel, Syst. Veget. v. 1. p. 484.

This handsome species flowered in the greenhouse of the Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, in September, 1835. Shrub erect. Branches ascending, red, glabrous, when young angled and having a few adpressed hairs. Leaves (four inches long, two lines broad) verticillate, linear, glabrous above, covered with white tomentum and veinless below, revolute in the edge, beyond the middle distinctly spinuloso-dentate, terminated with three mucros,
 * of

-- of which that in the centre is the shortest. Inflorescence terminal. Perianth dark red, but appearing leaden colour- ed from a covering of adpressed hairs, glabrous at the apex. Styles glabrous, reddish-purple, spreading horizontally, about three times as long as the perianth, connivent in double rows, and tipped with the yellow pollen. Graham.