77 
Cape bulbs has conduced so much to our knowledge of these 
beautiful things. We are most happy to give effect to Dr. 
Herbert’s recommendation, for certainly, be its name what it 
may, it is one of the finest species we yet possess. “ The 
flowers are very much smaller than those of A. Banksiana,”’ 
but we are not sufficiently acquainted with the genus to be 
able to draw up a satisfactory specific character. 
81. NAPOLEONA imperialis. 
Palisot de Beauvois Fl. d' Oware et de Benin, 2. 88. 
Among the most remarkable plants that have hitherto. 
been discovered ranks this rare species, of which living plants 
have been lately brought from Sierra Leone by Mr. Whit- 
field. That indefatigable collector having given me a dried. 
specimen with a seed, and the Earl of Derby having most. 
kindly placed in my hands a bottle containing the flowers in 
different states, an opportunity has arisen for clearing up the. 
history of one of the most obscure genera in the records of 
Systematical Botany. 
Napoleona was so named by the late M. Palisot de Beau- 
vois, who first found it in the kingdom of Oware, in Western 
Africa, where it was common, especially in the woods behind 
the King of Oware's residence. From fragments preserved 
by that naturalist a good figure, so far as general appearance 
goes, was published ; but with extremely inaccurate and in- 
complete details. The flowers were represented as being sky 
blue, with a sort of 5-rayed star of a pink colour in the 
middle, and upon the whole the account which he gave of it 
was so unsatisfactory, that the very existence of the plant has 
been doubted by some people. In what De Beauvois was 
right and in what wrong, the following description will shew. 
It forms a bush about as large as a Camellia, according to 
Mr. Whitfield. The wood is soft, whitish, with large medul- 
lary rays, an abundance of dotted vessels, intermingled with 
brittle acicular tubes of woody tissue, very like what is found 
in the germinating radicle of a Mangrove. No hairs are to 
be found on any part of the plant. : 
The leaves are alternate, leathery, between three and six 
inches long, obovate-lanceolate, taperıng to an obtuse point, 
