work. The introduction of it to the Gardens of this 
country is due to the Horticultural Society, in whose 
collection at Chiswick, where our drawing was made in 
May 1828, it had been raised from seeds collected in Chile 
by Mr. MRae. It is increased by cuttings of its half- 
woody leafy stem, or by division of the roots, or by seeds : 
during the summer it grows well in the open border, but 
it will not live there in the winter. 
M. Decandolle, in framing the character of this genus, 
in his Prodromus, has unfortunately adopted the error, 
which, we believe, originated with Forster, of mistaking 
the calycine segments for petals, and the spines of the 
tube of the calyx for the real divisions of that organ; — an 
error avoided by Willdenow, and the learned authors of 
the Hortus Kewensis, but followed by Vahl, and all the 
later German editors of the Species Plantarum. The 
analogy of Acena with Alchemilla, Sanguisorba, and 
other apetalous genera of Rosace®, first led us to doubt 
the presence of its supposed petals; and the examination 
of this, and some other species, has now confirmed the 
suspicion that no petals exist; as, we find, has also been 
pointed out by the learned editor of the Linnea. 
In the Herbarium of the Horticultural Society there is 
an Acena, found near Conception by Mr. M‘Rae, which 
differs from A. pinnatifida in its more dense habit, in its 
leaves being white, with long hairs, and in its somewhat 
larger flowers. This is no doubt the plant spoken of by 
Schlechtendahl and Chamisso (Linnea 2. p. 30.), as having 
been found by the latter at Talcaguano, and as being the 
A. trifida of the Flora Peruviana : if this be so, that species 
can be scarcely more than a variety of A. pinnatifida, from 
which it does not appear to us to possess any essential 
mark of distinction. 
In the same collection, but from the Baths of Collina, 
near the limits of the snow, exists a plant also resembling 
A. pinnatifida, but differing from it in not having its leaflets 
deeply 3-5-fid, but regularly and sharply inciso-serrate. 
This, we presume, is really a distinct species, which may 
be defined thus: — 
A. incisa; erecta sericea, foliis. 6-7-jugis, foliolis oblongis cuneatis inciso- 
serratis, capitulis spicatis ; inferioribus remotis. 
