perhaps, on the shores of the River Thames, or at Mercury Bay. Its 
seeds were sent by the Missionaries under the name of Kowaingutu- 
kaka, or Parrot's-bill; and were stated to be the produce of a large 
tree; but this was no doubt a mistake, as there is no reason to believe 
that the plant will grow more than three or four feet high. 
We extract the following account of it from the Horticultural 
Transactions. 
When planted in a peat border in the open air, where it succeeds the best, 
it forms a half-herbaceous evergreen shrub, not very unlike an evergreen Vetch, 
or more correctly speaking, a scarlet Colutea, (Sutherlandia frutescens). Its 
leaves are smooth, pinnated, and of rather a succulent texture, consisting of about 
eight pairs and an odd one. The stem is entirely free from furrows or angles, 
and is about as thick as a goose's quill. The flowers grow in oval clusters, 
hanging down from the axils of the leaves upon the lateral branches ; each flower 
is rather more than three inches from the tip of the standard to the tip of the keel; 
the petals are of a light bright rich crimson, without any mottling or marking; the 
standard, which is of an ovate-lanceolate figure, and much tapered to the point, is 
reflexed so as almost to lie back upon the calyx; the wings are very much shorter 
than the keel, the point of which is so much prolonged as to look like the beak of 
some bird, although it must be confessed not much like that of a parrot. The 
flowers are succeeded by brownish black pods, two inches and a half long, seated 
on a slender stipe, and convex on the upper instead of the lower edge: so that 
unless attention be paid to their manner of growth, it would seem as if the seeds 
grew to the lower instead of the upper edge. They are covered all over inside 
with a delicate cottony down, in which lie the small kidney-shaped seeds, of a dull 
yellowish-ochre colour, mottled with small dark brown blotches and speckles. 
“ From the trials that have been made of the proper mode of managing it, 
both by Mr. Gower and the Rev. John Coleman, by whom it was given to the 
former gentleman, it would appear that it succeeds best when treated as a hardy 
plant, and turned out into a peat border; for in such a situation it has now been 
two years in Mr. Gower's garden, and the plants continue to look very healthy, 
with a profusion of blossoms forming for next year. Kept in a greenhouse it was 
sickly, and did not flower in the hands of Mr. Gower's gardener; but Mr. Cole- 
man succeeded in blossoming it in a large pot in the greenhouse, and in inducing 
it to ripen its pods, one of which is that here figured. 
“Considering that the climate of New Zealand is in some places so much 
like that of England, that some species, such as Edwardsia microphylla, will 
bear the rigour of our winters, it is not improbable that this may also prove a hardy 
plant. If so its extraordinary beauty will render it one of the most valuable species 
that has been introduced of late years; and even if it should be no hardier than 
Sutherlandia frutescens, it will still form one of the most important and welcome 
of all the modern additions to our flower gardens.” 
We refer our readers to the observations upon the other species 
made by Mr. Allan Cunningham in the place whence the foregoing 
passage has been extracted, for further information concerning these 
remarkable plants; adding only, that in the first place, the supposed 
attachment of the seeds to the lower suture of the pod, as described 
br Mr. Don, is a mistake, their attachment being in Clianthus as in 
all other Leguminose, namely, to the upper suture; and in the 
second, that as we are not aware of any reason why Dr. Solander's 
well-known name, Clianthus, should have been changed to that of 
Donia, we have not felt authorized to sanction the innovation. 
ER AA ie 
