tests nigncante, polline aurantiaco^ Stig. linean-oblonga, connatisJtlammtU 

 eoarctato-ereetOt istu discretis ttiMizriiatat lurido-purpurea, labio interiori 

 tegnieittis aeitminatist exteriori breviori concohri piano. 



Excepting Mor^a Stsvrinchium, the roots or bulb-tubers 

 t)f Which are known by the ilame of Spanish nuts, and are 

 esculent, the whole of this beautiful and numerous genus, as 

 far as we are acquainted with it, belongs to South Africa. 

 We say this under the impression that the species which 

 have been ranked under Morxa in Mr. Kunth*s edition of 

 Humboldt and Bonpland*s Flora of South America, will be 

 found, when inspected in the living plant, not to be genuine 

 congenei-s of iti We have elsewhere observed, that the 

 Only constant mark between this genus and Ibis, exists in 

 the nature of the root, which is here a bulb-tuber, but never 

 Buch in Iris. A distinction, which as it constantly induces 

 a concomitant variation in the general habit of the plants, 

 is as usefully available as one found in some other part of 

 greater technical privilege* 



The present is an unrecorded species, and has been lately 

 introduced from the Cape by Mr. Griffin, with whom it 

 flowered at South Lambeth in June last. No vegetable 

 group displays a greater variety of beautiful and brilliant 

 hues than this genus. The tint of the present flower, though 

 sombre, is singular and of a richness in the living flower 

 that cannot be adequately rendered, by any means within 

 the reach of a work of this nature. Its nearest congeners 

 are tricuspis, tenuis, and tristis; but it differs from the 

 two firet in having the inner alternate segments of the 

 corolla undivided, and from the latter in having the same 

 several times smaller than the outer ones. 



About a span high or rather more, upright* Stem 

 simple, very slender, not much more than thrice the thick- 

 ness of a hail*, elastic, straight, two or three jointed, with 

 about three leaves. Leaves grassy, Hnear, smooth, lower- 

 most one sheathing at the lower part, upwards convolutely 

 flat, about two lines broad, streakletted, tapered towards 

 the top, two others short, sheathing, distant. Spatke one- 

 flowered, fusiform or spindle-shaped, about two inches long, 

 green, awnedly acuminate, the valves rolled one within the 

 other. Peduncle about equal to the spathe. Germen ob- 

 long, gfeen, prism-shaped with obtuse comers, three or 



