i 



' Brought to the Garden of the Horticultural Society, it 

 flowered in the Greenhouse in May 1827, at which time 

 our drawing was made. ■ 



< 



Having lately had some correspondence with Mr. 

 Herbert upon the subject of the characters assigned to 

 this genus at fol. 928, and further adverted to at fol. 1016, 

 p. 2, we have been led to reconsider the structure of those 

 processes which are there called sterile stamens, and upon 

 which the genus was chiefly founded. Mr. Herbert, to 

 whorti we are extremely obliged for his remarks, observes, 

 that " in describing Phycella ignea v. glauca in the 

 Botanical Magazine, fol. 2687, he stated his opinion that 

 these bodies were not sterile stamens, but only mem- 

 branous processes ; and ithat, considering them of less im- 

 portance than we attached to them, he adverted to them 

 in the specific, and not in the generic character, in the 

 persuasion that species would hereafter be found without 

 them." The original species, Amaryllis ignea, upon which 

 the genus was founded, had, as is stated at fol. 928, two 

 subulate processes, proceeding from the base of the three 

 calycine stamens : they were one-third the length of the 

 filaments to which they were attached, and having the 

 position which would be that of additional stamens, sup- 

 posing such to be present, they were described as being so, 

 but sterile. But the glaucous variety does not possess the 

 same structure, having mere irregular membranous pro- 

 cesses, instead of the subulate bodies of its original. Now, 

 as these two plants are not easily distinguished even as 

 varieties, it is clear that Mr. Herbert was right in esti- 

 mating of little value, with a view to generic distinction, 

 the peculiarity upon which the genus was originally 

 founded. The justness of this decision, to which we were 

 at one time unwilling to assent, is confirmed by the species 

 now described, in which the stamens have no appendages 

 at their base, but are inserted within a fringed annular 

 border ; by a second sent from Mendoza by Dr. Gillies, in 

 which this border is broken up into three faucial scales ; 

 and, lastly, by a third, collected in Chile by Mr. M'Rae, 

 in which there appears to be neither appendages nor border. 

 The character of the genus Phycella will therefore depend 

 upon the convolutely-imbricated perianthium, the declinate 

 style, and the simple thickened stigma ; and not upon the 



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