This most lovely new species of Thunbergia is one of 

 the many rarities which Mr. Whitfield has,, not without 

 great danger and risk, brought from the interior of Sierra 

 Leone, to the Right Honorable the Earl of Derby ; and 

 our stove in the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew, and many 

 other stoves we believe in this country, are indebted to his 

 Lordship for the possession of it. The same gentleman, Mr. 

 Whitfield, has likewise introduced to Knowsley, and 

 through the same distinguished nobleman to Kew, the curi- 

 ous Napoleonea lmperialis and the African Teak, or African 

 Oak, as it is frequently called. Our new Thunbergia has 

 the merit of not only being very beautiful, but easily culti- 

 vated in a stove, readily increased by cuttings, soon 

 flowering, and bearing a succession of blossoms to com- 

 pensate for the short duration of each individual one. 



Descr. Stems climbing, slender, herbaceous, slightly 

 hairy. Leaves opposite, petiolate, cordate, or sometimes 

 ovato-cordate, acute, or slightly acuminate, angulato- 

 dentate at the margin, five or seven-nerved with transverse 

 veins; petiole tereti-compressed, not at all winged. Pe- 

 duncles axillary, solitary, single-flowered, shorter than the 

 petiole. Bracteas two, large, ovate, appressed to the base 

 of the flower. Calyx truncated, forming, as it were, a 

 large, fleshy disk, within the slightly lobed or raised edge 

 of which, the base of the corolla is inserted. Corolla sub- 

 campanulato-infundibuliform ; the tube yellow, much con- 

 tracted at the base, widening upwards, and becoming of a 

 rich purple on the spreading five-lobed limb, of a blue cast 

 near the mouth, which encircles the full yellow throat (or 

 eye) of the corolla, whence the specific name. Stamens 

 four, didynamous, included ; Anthers sagittate, the base of 

 the lobes with pedicellated glands. Gerrnen green, ovate, 

 on a large, fleshy disk, besides the disk which fills the short 

 calyx. Style filiform, as long, or nearly so, as the tube 

 of the corolla, bearded above. Stigma of two large, leafy, 

 yellow, plaited lobes. 



Fig. 1. Tube of the Corolla, laid open. 2. Stamens. 3. Calyx and 

 ristil. 4. Germen, cut through transversely :— magnified. 



