The Botanical Magazine/Volume 5/147

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Class and Order.

Generic Character.

Involucrum 4-phyllum. Cor. 4 s. 5-fida. Bacca 1-sperma.

Specific Character and Synonyms.

DAIS cotinifolia floribus quinquefidis decandris. Linn. Syst. Vegetab. ed. 14.Murr. p. 403. Spec. Pl. p. 556.

DAIS laurifolia. Jacq. ic. collect. 1. p. 46.

The Dais cotinifolia is an ornamental Green-house Shrub, of the deciduous kind, and though it appears from the Hortus Kewensis to have been introduced by Mr. of Mile-End, in 1776, is yet a great rarity with us, and only to be found in some of the first collections.

Its scarcity, and consequent very high price, is attributed to the Nursery-men's not having yet discovered the means of propagating it freely.

Messrs. and Co. of Kensington, have some very fine plants of it, which flower every year in the months of June and July, but as yet have produced no perfect seeds, which they may be expected to do when grown older; such having been known to ripen them in Holland.

It is a native of the Cape, and appears to have been long possessed by the Dutch, as its Generic Character taken from is printed in the Genera Plantarum of in 1764.

There are only two known species, and they vary in the number of their Stamina, and divisions of the Corolla.