Curtis's Botanical Magazine/Volume 69/4035

[ 4035 ]

Class and Order.

(Nat. Ord. - )

Generic Character.

Perianthium quadripartitum v. quadrifidum. Stamina apicibus concavis laciniarum immersa. Squamulæ hypo- gonæ 4. Ovarium biloculare, loculis monospermis. Fol- liculis ligneus: dissepimento libero bifido. Receptacu- lum commune planum, floribus indeterminatim confertis; paleis angustis, raro nullis. Involucrum commune imbrica- tum.–Frutices plerumque humiles. Rami dum adsint sparsi vel umbellati. Folia sparsa, pinnatifida v. incisa, plantæ juvenilis conformia. Involucra solitaria, terminalia, raro lateralia, sessilia, foliis confertis, interioribus quandoque nanis obvallata, hemisphærica, bracteis adpressis, in quibus- dam apice appendiculatis. Stylus sæpè perianthio vix lon- gior. Br.

Specific Character and Synonyms.

arctotidis; foliis linearibus pinnatifidis subter niveo-tomentosis caulem glabrum subæqualibus, lobis lineari-lanceolatis decurrentibus aveniis marginibus in- crassato-recurvis, involucri squamis lineari-lanceolatis glabriusculis, perianthii unguibus laminisque villosis, tubo imberbi. Br.

arctotidis. Br. Prodr. Suppl. p. 39.

This is one of several handsome species which Mr. added to the number previously published in the Prodromus Floræ Novæ Hollandiæ; and which Mr.
 * introduced

-- introduced into his valued Supplement, which appeared in 1830. It was detected in 1829, in the hilly region near King George's Sound, on the South-western shores of New Holland. Plants were raised from seeds soon after that period, and they form small, but handsome, bushy green- house plants; bearing numerous flowers in the month of May in the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew, where our draw- ing was made in 1842.

Stems short, but much branched and straggling, glabrous, densely clothed with harsh, rigid, but graceful foliage. Leaves a span long, petioled, linear, deeply pin- natifid, almost to the rachis, more or less hairy; segments very narrow, linear, acute, almost subulate, curved down- wards, decurrent, dark green and shining above, white with dense down beneath: the rachis pale brown :-the lower segments are so far apart that the base of the leaf may be called pinnate, the rachis winged with the decurrent pin- nules. Flowers terminal, on exceedingly short branches, collected into an obconical head, shorter than the surround- ing foliage. Perianth with its tube glabrous, the four narrow, linear segments spathulate at their extremities and hairy. Style much longer than the perianth, glabrous. Stigma clavate.

Fig. 1. Single Flower:–magnified.