The species grows naturally in the West Indies, in Vir- 

 ginia and in Carolina, is sometimes described as herbaceous 

 and biennial, sometimes as perennial, sometimes as irutes- 

 cent or shrubby. Botanists have given it a full share of 

 their attention, but it had been no where exemplified by a 

 coloured figure. The stem seldom exceeds two feet in height, 

 generally branched ; leaves pinnate, leaflets five-paired, ac- 

 cording to Linnceus only three-paired in the maturer plant, 

 outer pairs gradually larger, each leaflet ovate lanceolate, 

 rough at the edge; petiole with a single protuberant gland 

 on the inside of its base : when handled they diffuse a strong 

 narcotic scent, which in our colonies has acquired the plant 

 the appellation of " The Stinking Weed." 



FIozllts on the racemes (which are axillary and terminal) 

 in pairs; corolla concave, veined, of a dullish unspotted 

 yellow colour; anthei^s opening by a double orifice at their 

 summit, from the under margin of which a roundish lami- 

 nar lobe is projected; fading from a light to a tawny yel- 

 low. Stigma a dilated termination of the style, of a deep 

 vivid green colour. Legume or pod, narrow, falcately li- 

 near, flattened, torose or protuberant where each seed lies, 

 edged by a narrow pale cartilaginous border. 



Upon the authority of a IMS note in the Banksian Mu- 

 seum, written when the Herbarium of that establishment 

 was collated with the Linnean, we have resolved Cassia 

 planisUiqua into the present species. PlanisUiqua was first 

 recorded by Van Roy en (or rather by Linnseus under his 

 name) in a work subsequent to the Hortus Cliffbrtianus in 

 which occidentatis first appeared, and had been probably 

 taken up solely from the figure cited for it from Plunder's 

 work. The specimen found under that name in the Lin- 

 nean Herbarium is an East Indian plant with eight-paired 

 leaves, and plainly neither that of the description nor of the 

 synonym. 



The drawing was made from a plant raised from seed, 

 which flowered this autumn in Lady Aylesford's collection 

 at Stanmore. ' 



A hothouse plant cultivated by Philip Miller in 1759. 

 In Jamaica it is very common, and we are told used by the 

 negroes as medicine. 



Tl 



aguifieel 



b A stamen : magnified, c The lobe thai 



: orifice uf the lamer anther* ; magnified 



