Tab. 6954. 

 BARLERIA ripens. 



Native of Eastern Tropical Africa. 



Nat. Ord. Acanthace^e.— Tribe Justicie.e. 

 Genus Barleria, Linn.; (Benth. et Hooh.f. Gen. PI. vol. ii. p. 1091.) 



Barleria repens ; caulibus procumbentibus diffuse rmmoaia obtuse angulatis hasi 

 radicantibus cano pubescentibus pilosisve, foliis ovatis obovatis v. ellipticis 

 obtusis acutisve in petiolum angustatis membranaceis utrinque pubescentibus, 

 floribus axillaribus solitariis sessilibus v. subsessilibus, bracteolis subulatis 

 calyce multo brevioribus, sepalis majoribus ovato-oblongis acutis integerriinis 

 reticulntis minoribus parvis lanceolatis, corolla? rubrae 2-pollicaris tubo elongato 

 infundibulari pilosulo lobis oblongis. 



B. repens, Nees in DC. Prodr. vol. xi. p. 230; T. Anders, in Journ. Linn. Sue. 

 Pot. vol. vii. p. 3L 



The genus Barleria, though a large one, numbering 

 upwards of sixty species, has never met favour with horti- 

 culturists. Only three species have been figured in this 

 Magazine, B. cristata, Linn. (Tab. 1615), B. Gibson i, Dalz. 

 (Tab. 5028), and B. Mackenii, Hook. (Tab. 5866). They 

 are, however, very handsome stove plants, as the above- 

 cited figures show, and the real reason for their neglect is 

 that they are weedy in habit, and their beautiful blossoms 

 are delicate and ephemeral. 



B. repens is apparently common in Eastern Tropical 

 Africa. It was first described from specimens collected 

 in Pemba and Raza Islands, near Delagoa Bay, by Forbes, 

 a collector for the Horticultural Society ; and it has more 

 recently been found by the Rev. M. Wakefield at Mombesa, 

 and at Kilwa and Zanzibar by Sir John Kirk, to whom the 

 Royal Gardens are indebted for seeds that arrived in 1875, 

 and flowered in a stove in July of 1886. 



Descr. A prostrate diffusely branching shrub or under- 

 shrub ; stems one to two feet long, rigid, branched, rooting 

 at the base, pubescent with short rather lax hairs, obtusely 

 four-angled. Leaves opposite, and appearing as if fascicled, 

 for the abbreviated leafy branchlets at the nodes, one to 

 two and a half inches long, rather membranous, elliptic- 



SEPT. 1st, 1887. 



