In every thing except beauty it is extremely interesting. 
It is a plant botanically allied to Correa, and Boronia, without 
any external resemblance to those plants ; it has the arrange- 
ment of parts found in Composite genera without any sort of 
affinity to them; and finally it is an apetalous genus among 
polypetalous ones. 
The inflorescence, in which this singular organization 
resides, is a true capitulum, surrounded by an involucrum of 
several series. Within the latter are collected many flowers, 
which are so pressed upon one another that no room is left for 
the development of calyx or corolla as separate organs, and 
consequently those parts are equally reduced to scales, and 
blended together till they can be no longer distinguished; 
their number however is by no means five, as is generally de- 
scribed; on the contrary, they are more than ten or some 
higher number than five. So of the stamens; their number 
is said by Botanists to be ten, but they exist to the extent of 
even fifteen, as is shewn in the accompanying figure. The 
fact being that the plant varies in this respect. 
In the analyses shown in the accompanying plate, fig. 1. 
represents a single flower extracted from the involucre ; 2. is 
astamen; 3. represents the ovary with its style and stigma ; 
4. 1s a cross section of the ovary, and 5. one of the starry hairs 
with which all the green parts are covered. 
The name borne by this plant is in allusion to its having 
two coverings for the flowers; one the involucrum, which 
protects all the flowers externally ; and the other the scales 
which surround the base of the stamens. It is compounded 
of diAoo0s double and xAaiva a cloak. 
A rather robust hardy greenhouse shrub, requiring the 
same treatment as the Correas, and like them increased by 
cuttings of half-ripe wood, treated in the ordinary way and 
covered with a bell-glass. The plant flowers during the early 
part of summer. 
